The Random Queen
by Shadow of the Blizzard
Summary: Naruto, chased from Konoha, meets another like him. This new girl may be beyond what anyone can expect or even begin to comprehend.
1. New Years Day

This prequel/first chapter. Please enjoy, sorry ahead of time for slightly spastic nature, if it's even noticed.

Disclaimer: There is a reason this story is being hosted on unless it isn't, in which case, take it off. I authorize this only to even though that probably means jack to someone who actually wants this on somewhere else.

A cool, pleasant breeze floated gently over Konohagakure, the hidden village of the leaves. The weather was excellent, and most had no worries. The villagers were going about their daily business on this early morning, and some random groups of merchants were checking in at the gates. The shinobi population was prospering since the ending of the Second Great War years ago, and thing couldn't seem better.

This surreal and idealistic overview of the city would be excellent to believe, if you were a very gullible and/or blind person. In fact, one only had to look a distance of about 100 feet from the main gates to spot the first instance of trouble. This particular instance of trouble had a large amount of cuts on its surface, which looked rather shallow in general, but the sheer number of such cuts and the combined blood loss, combined with the risk of infection, would quite possibly make such wounds fatal over time. Said instance of trouble also was moving at a particularly fast pace away from what would appear from great heights to be a large blob. From said great height, said instance of trouble would appear to be nothing more than a particularly fast moving small orange blur. Said small orange blur was, in actuality, a small boy, known as Uzumaki Naruto.

Uzumaki Naruto... the future hokage if you asked him, an annoyance if you asked his fellow classmates at the Konoha Shinobi Academy, and a monster, or possibly demon, if you were (for some reason) to ask the general population of Konohagakure. Naruto was, at the moment, running for his dear life from what he severely wished was simply a giant blob. Instead, it would be more accurate to describe the pursuing force as a giant MOB, filled with rather hateful people. Said mob was filled largely with rather hateful civilians, but there were a few rather hateful shinobi leading the group. All in all, Naruto would much rather take his chances against a giant blob over the rather hateful group following in his wake.

Unfortunately, young Naruto very rarely got his wishes, and he was forced to deal with his perusing force in a very natural reaction to one threatened with their life in overwhelming odds; the path of flight.

This sequence of events led to something to villagers would normally abhor; namely the beating, cutting, and general overall lynching of a small child. When put in the context of said young child being one Uzumaki Naruto, however, it made perfect sense for them to pass up normal common sense and decency in favor of a path of more bloodshed and all around nastiness. How young Naruto managed to escape was something he marveled at, but decided to take more time to marvel at when said marveling time was more readily available; such as when his life was not in a very dangerous position.

As it was, he figured, he was lucky to be alive now at all. Best not to ruin that.

Young Naruto had been running for a very long time now, as his chase had started near the very bowels of Konoha and for a rather stupid reason at that. In fact, if one were to look at the history of the village's actions toward young Naruto, one would find most of them were for very stupid reasons. As it was, this particular reason was slightly more stupid than the ordinary stupid reasons. As poor Naruto will be running for his life, and the villagers won't catch up anytime soon, we shall take this time to gloss over said stupid reasons.

The date of today was October tenth, a date more commonly written as 10/10. Coincidentally, and on a completely unrelated note, this number is pronounced in exactly the same manner as a young, brown-haired girl residing in Konoha, who was currently occupied with sneezing in the middle of the field in which she was practicing throwing shuriken at a tree.

This date was also one of much celebrating, mourning, and Naruto-beating for the villagers. Celebrating, because this day was the anniversary of the defeat of the Legendary Nine-Tailed fox demon, Kyuubi, who had attacked the village seven years prior. Mourning, because of the sheer number of deaths from the attack of the Kyuubi.

The Naruto-beating is where said stupid reasons of the villagers come in. Because the Kyuubi was so powerful, it couldn't be killed or destroyed by conventional means. This meant that it needed to be beaten by rather unconventional means. Enter the Yondaime Hokage, the fourth ruler of Konoha, legendary sealing master, and general all around awesome ninja. Using a seal invented by himself, he managed to seal away the Kyuubi's power and soul, hence his description of awesome ninja-ness. Unfortunately, the Kyuubi was too powerful to seal in an inanimate object or person, as it would be too powerful and break the sealing medium, which would be rather horrible for a person. The only option would be to use a newborn child, whose chakra coils would be able to develop to adapt to the power of the Kyuubi.

Enter baby Uzumaki Naruto, who had apparently drawn the "ass end of fate" card and been born only 2 hours before the Kyuubi attacked. He had thus been the sealing medium, leading to the villager's severe hate and fear of him. Fear, because of the possibility of the Kyuubi breaking free, and hate because he reminded them of those who had died on that day. That and they were just not generally very pleasant people to be on the bad side of, and held rather fierce grudges, even though anyone could plainly see that a small child was not the demon of fear that vexed them so.

Nevertheless, the villagers disliked Naruto, and on the Kyuubi's Defeat Anniversary, some decided to do something about it. This made a spectacle, and rather than help the defenseless child, many chose to join in, leading to young Naruto's fleeing, leading us to him now.

Naruto had amazingly been running this whole time, kindly waiting to initiate any type of plot point until you readers had finished reading the explanation of why he was running. Doesn't that make you feel bad? All that time you spent reading; you kept a poor young child running for his life. You probably shouldn't have doubled back on that one spelling error you thought you saw, huh?

Don't even bother apologizing, it's far too late at this point, as Naruto has already done all that running you've forced him to do.

Anyways, Naruto had not even realized that the wishfully-giant-blob mob of people had stopped following him long ago, after becoming very tired. The death threats from the Elite ANBU shinobi standing in their paths probably didn't help them much either.

Regardless, Naruto had no idea how completely alone he was, and only slightly more of how completely lost he was. He had, in fact, been following what appeared to be a rather large coastline for quite a while now. He was to afraid to even notice how obscenely tired he was, or to notice that he was only able to keep running through the fact that his wounds had healed extremely quickly, and were already closed, leaving perfectly scar-less, though slightly bloodstained skin, behind.

The healed wounds still did nothing to help his exhaustion, though, and it was beginning to catch up with him. His vision was quickly blurring, although his mind, being focused only on running as far as possible, noticed none of this. In fact, Naruto hadn't even noticed that through his blurred vision, the forest ground he was running on was turned to stone, the forest canopy overhead had turned to clear sky, and the clear water to his right now had silvery strips going straight out into the water. Naruto hardly even noticed when he had smashed headfirst into something large and rectangular in his path.

His mind only registered that he was no longer moving, and that was very bad. This state of panic was only worsened by the slightly ominous human shaped blurs coming slowly closer to him. Even more panic inducing, and rather unfortunate, was the fact that he was so thoroughly exhausted that he could do nothing to stop the advancing figures. So poor Naruto was left only to panic.

"No…" he softly mumbled as his last grips of awareness slipped from him.

ssssssssssssssssssssssss

Naruto had possibly hoped to end up like in one of the stories he had heard, and wake up on a comfy bed with some nice people, who would turn out to be awesome ninjas, and would train him to be an awesomely kickass ninja, so he could return to Konoha, sweeping the Hokage title directly onto his feet

Sadly, this was very far from the truth. Naruto woke up feeling very stiff, and was on a cold metal floor. He also felt extremely queasy. This was odd to him, as Naruto had only been sick to his stomach twice in his life. The first had been when he had eaten some rather rubbish food out of a dumpster, for lack of anything else to eat. The second time had been after he had woken up from trying to sleep in one of the little boats he had noticed in a small lake in Konoha. Not remembering eating trash anytime recently, Naruto's mind jumped to the second conclusion. Upon sitting up and examining his surroundings, finding a window in the process, Naruto indeed had surmised correctly that he was on a boat. A rather large one, by the looks of it, and judging by the fact that he could see no land outside of his window he was in a rather large body of water, which was probably why the boat was so rather-ly large.

Almost expecting someone to come in and make some comment about his being awake, Naruto waited. And waited. And waited, for quite a long while. Finally deciding to forego the desire for clichéd plot points, Naruto tried the door. It was, to his chagrin, unlocked, and Naruto almost slapped his head, only stopping when he realized that there was a person standing right next to his door, apparently having been about to open it.

"What are you doing here?" Naruto asked, feeling like he was interrupting something meant to be scheduled to happen.

"I was about to come in and make a clichéd comment about how you were finally awake, and tell you how long you were out and where you are now," replied the man.

"What…?" said a very confused Naruto.

"I was going to check on you."

"What was with the rest of that…?"

"Rest of what?"

"…The…never mind……" uttered Naruto to the odd man. "How long was I asleep?"

"You've been out for about 3 days"

"And where…"

"We're on a trading ship, heading towards the Hidden Mist village," Informed the man, interrupting Naruto as though knowing exactly what he knew what he was thinking. (AN: whistles innocently)

"Hidden Mist, that's…"

"A shinobi village, yes."

"Maybe I can…"

"Learn awesome ninja moves, maybe. It will, however, be hard to actually find a teacher there."

"Could you…"

"Stop reading your mind and interrupting you? I could, but this is more fun." Naruto was quickly getting angry.

"But I…"

"Don't like it, I know." Angrier…

"Shut…"

"Up? No thank you." Last straw; time to trick him!

"I'm a bag of horse dung!"

"……" Didn't work so well…

"…"

"…"

"That didn't come…"

"Out very well, I know."

Naruto just sighed in exasperation.

"What…

"Are you here for? You passed out in a port town, where we were leaving towards Hidden Mist. You looked beaten, and were running far too fast for a normal child. We guessed you had some shinobi training, and were running from something. We figured we'd take you along with us. If you were attempting to escape something, the sea would help separate you. If not, we would return you on the next trip back, and I, as captain, would take full responsibility."

"Well, I was trying…"

"To get away… We'd thought that was most likely, based on the bloodstains. Unfortunately, we cannot let you upstairs, as you'd likely scare the passengers with your appearance. We will make port in Kirigakure in a little over a day and a half, so we kindly ask you to remain in your room until then. Food will be provided for you shortly, and you have a bathroom in there."

"Okay… thanks, I guess," Naruto said, and dazedly wandered back into his room.

Food was, as promised, shortly delivered. The man took about 2 hours to bring the food, but was only somewhere in the vicinity of four feet tall. (cue readers: sweatdrop. You know you want to)

Unfortunately, Naruto was still rather tired, and wasn't at all kept awake by the boringness of the ride. After waiting… and waiting… and waiting, Naruto looked up at the conveniently placed clock on the wall. Since it showed only 45 minutes passing since he'd had his meal, he decided to give up on his consciousness and slowly passed out.

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Naruto was awakened by a hard thump on his left hand side, and groggily looked around him. He saw wood below him, and water to the front and sides of him. Upon closer inspection, he also saw a boat swiftly moving away from him. Upon even closer inspection, he saw the half-psychic Captain from before, waving to him from the back of the boat.

Upon very little inspection of the general area behind him, Naruto saw a large looking wall, with a large looking door, and a couple large looking towers on either side of said large looking door. Naruto knocked. The door, as most doors do when knocked upon, opened, letting him inside. Once he was clear, the door did the only other thing doors regularly do, which happened to be close.

Naruto saw a large amount of buildings, and some people. He saw the air that was always topped with a fine layer of mist. He also saw guards on either side of him, wearing ninja hitai-ite emblazoned with the Kirigakure symbol. After proliferating for a few seconds, young Naruto's oh-so-sharp mind came to the simple conclusion that he was, in fact, in hidden mist.

The guards proceeded to block his route into the village, and asked him some basic village entry permit questions, including "what is your name?", "what is your favorite color?", and "How many times was your Grandfather arrested for being in odd situations with a goat?". Seeing as how Naruto was an orphan, he had no way of answering the last question, and was only given a provisional visa, and had to check back in a month in order to get a citizenship visa.

Naruto wandered for a bit, until his stomach interrupted his wandering via a loud grumbling sound. He contemplated the fact that he had no idea of where to get food, and even if he did, he had no money with which to buy said food. His contemplations were interrupted by a rather angry voice shouting "MONSTER!" from rather nearby.

"KILL IT!" the rather nearby voice shouted again.

Naruto, while very annoyed at being interrupted so often in very recent times, was still very panicked, and quickly leaped into a nearby dark alleyway, hiding inside a conveniently placed empty dumpster.

Naruto heard to shouting man grow into a shouting mob, and soon feared a repeat of his previous experience with an angry mob. The voices were moving closer to the side of the building he was hiding behind, and he was about to consider running when a figure leaped into the same empty dumpster he was currently sheltering in. The figure smashed into Naruto, though he noticed it was slightly smaller than him, and slightly lighter too. Naruto also saw large amounts of yellow cloud his vision, the same shade of yellow that his hair could be described as.

As the figure straightened up, Naruto realized it was a girl, probably only a year younger than him. Her hair, oddly the same color as Naruto's unique mop, was straight, and flowed to just below her shoulders. Her body was slightly shorter than his, but showed the same signs of starvation that he was very familiar with. She was panting, and appeared to be greatly distressed. Her face, which under any other circumstance would appear adorably cute, was laced with fear and panic. The most interesting part was her eyes, which were made of many different colors. Naruto could see blue, red, green, black, and even some yellow all swirled within them. Sadly, the eyes that would have been amazing at any other time, were currently glaring at him in fear and confusion.

"What are you doing here?" the girl asked. Her voice was shrill, mostly from fear, but see couldn't have been more than six.

"I'm hiding from those freaks out there!" Sadly, Naruto's assumed bravado was naturally lost from the fear of the people outside.

"Why are you hiding? They're trying to hurt me!" replied the girl in as close of a scream as her whispering would allow her.

"Why would they hurt you? I'm the one they're after!"

"Are you dumb, or just trying to be mean? They want me dead!"

"No they don't! They're yelling 'MONSTER' out there…!"

Both children piped up at this moment.

"That monster's me!"

Both children then chose this moment to silence themselves, and stare at each other in a mixture of confusion and awe… but mostly confusion.

pppppppppppppppppppp

AN: kind of a cliffhanger, I know, but I needed a good stopping point, and wanted to elaborate some things.

First, the girl is not a jinchuuriki, but will play the major part of making this fic what it is. Ladies and gentlemen, meet your new secondary character!!! expects cheers, gets silence… right… well, she may not seem like much now, but I'm avoiding the jinchuuriki cliché, and attempting very hard to not make a mary sue here. Rest assured, she is very special, though it is through a bloodline, not demon powers. There is still a reason for everything happening, but she will not be almighty in any way, but her bloodline should be very unexpected. I promise it won't be any "kill everything" bloodline or move, but it will make this fic what it is and let the humor flow while excusing the brief moments this fic might possibly pass as a crackfic. I promise it isn't, but even still.

Second, pairings ARE open debate, to some extent. Some limitations, being:

-most likely not NaruHina. They are cute, but it's been overdone, and I don't feel I could do anything new with them.

-no one severely age different. IE, no Tsunade, Shizune, Anko, Kurenai. Etc.

-not NaruHarem. I have read some good ones, such as From Ramen With Love, but I wouldn't be able to do it justice or fit it with my plans for the story

-NO YAOI/YURI. I have no problem whatsoever with homosexuality, as long as I'm not involved. I am not gay, nor do I particularly feel like writing about being gay. It's nothing personal. I wouldn't about being Buddhist. I have nothing against them, but I am not Buddhist. This means I wouldn't be able to actually understand it or write it well. Same principle.

That said, I was leaning towards either Naruto + Temari, or Naruto + OC girl introduced in this chapter. The OC girl will play the major part as secondary character whether she's the love interest or not, so it doesn't matter, though I can tell you they'd be great. Even still, you can vote in your reviews, and I shall listen.

Lastly, I am a perfectionist, and won't tolerate bad spelling on my own part. Any spelling errors you notice, especially things like the Mangekyo Sharigan or Sannin/Sennin would be appreciated. I've seen horrible spelling ruin otherwise good fics, especially simple things, like somehow getting Uzamaka Naruto or Kahona Village. Help would be thanked.

That said, reviews would be nice for some feedback, and you should definitely read the stories listed in my Bio, Especially Never Cut Twice, which is my personal favorite fic ever.

Hope you enjoyed the prequel.


	2. White Wedding

Disclaimer: Naruto is not currently in my possession, or else i would be writing the real story rather than this wishfully-real one.

"They're yelling 'MONSTER' out there…!"

Both children piped up at this moment.

"That monster's me!"

Both children then chose this moment to silence themselves, and stare at each other in a mixture of confusion and awe… but mostly confusion.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Naruto couldn't believe his ears for a second. was it possible that this girl was like him? He never knew why he was hated, but suddenly a new world was opened up to him. What if there WERE others like him? He wouldn't have to be alone anymore!

Naruto then looked at the girl's haggard, yet still clean clothes, then glanced at his own messy, bloodstained bundle. Surely she couldn't be as bad off as him... right?

"Why are you a monster?" the girl asked suddenly, eying his noticeably reddened clothes with a slight amount of fear.

"I don't know. The people from my village always hated me though. No one ever told me why." A thought occurred to Naruto. "Why are YOU a monster?"

The girl quickly looked down, but Naruto saw a large amount of fear appear in her eyes right as he asked that question.

"I don't know either..." she softly mumbled.

This odd and strained moment was hastily interrupted by the approaching sounds of the mob, who had been conveniently forgotten by the children. Naruto quickly pulled off his jacket, as confusion and panic started settling on the face of the girl.

"What are you doing?!" she whispered, stricken with the fear of her impending doom.

"Get down!" Naruto hissed, pushing the girl into the corner and throwing the blanket over her.

She felt a soft pressure appear on her stomach as she curled into the corner, but the dark had simply pushed her mind past what it could handle. Would this boy turn her in for a reward? Or simply beat her up for the fun of it? The possibilities were endless, and yet she was too afraid to even move. This boy didn't seem to be mean-spirited, so she decided to trust him a slight bit.

She froze as she heard a deep voice sounding from only feet above her head.

"Hey, kid... you alright?" the voice asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine mister." came the voice of the boy she had just met. The pressure on her stomach lightened slightly, and she realized the boy was sitting on her. She felt slightly indignant, but the panic quickly swept this feeling down.

"Where're your parents?" came the deep voice from above her.

"Don't got any..." said the boy, sounding almost mournful.

"Oh..." the voice mumbled. She heard footsteps traveling away from the dumpster. "Hey guys, she's not here! Probably ran farther down the street!"

This exclamation was followed with the sounds of many running people and shouts. Light slowly came back to the girl's eyes.

"Sorry about sitting on you," said Naruto, putting his orange jacket back on. "I needed a way to hide you"

The girl was amazed that he had come up with that idea so quickly, and more so that it actually worked.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto! I'm the future Hokage of Konoha!"

The girl was amazed that this boy was making such a statement. She knew the Hokage was the leader of Konoha, and was amazed she had run into the boy. This title, combined with his live saving act, cemented his near royalty status in her eyes.

"My name is... Randamu Ichino..." the girl uttered, afraid of him leaving just at the mention of her name. Oddly, to her at least, he only seemed politely puzzled.

"Ichino... It's pretty. I like it," Naruto stated in his matter-of-fact manner.

Ichino wondered briefly about his lack of interest in her family name, before realizing that, from his claims of Konoha ruler ship, he probably wasn't from around here. Relief spread through her quickly. It then quickly left, replaced with worry.

"Where are you going?!" It was panicked, and she knew, but she had finally found someone that acted at least half decent to her. This wasn't something to just throw away, she knew.

Naruto looked over curiously.

"I'm just checking if the coast is clear."

He peeked over the edge of the dumpster, and then turned back to Ichino.

"Have you had any ninja training?" he asked, hoping desperately that her leap into the dumpster earlier was from some form of training rather than blind panic.

When she gave a slight nod, he wordlessly moved over to her, grabbed her, and helped hoist her over the edge. He then clambered out after her.

Naruto gave a "follow me" sign, and then quickly ran out of the alley. Ichino kept up, and the two darted from one hiding place to the next, acting as though they were just playing ninja. Ironically, they really were being ninja, but the villagers didn't know that, and ignored them.

When they'd made it back to the gate, which was Naruto's apparent destination, they finally stopped. Ichino had to catch her breath slightly, but Naruto wasn't even panting. The guards at the gate hadn't noticed them, but did when Naruto walked up to them.

"Ah, young Uzumaki-san. Have you discovered your grandfather's history yet?" the guard asked politely.

"No, you freaks, but I decided not to stay here for very long. Can you tell me when the next ship back to Fire Country is?"

"As a matter of fact, the ferries usually run in pairs, but the ship traveling with your earlier boat had to stop for repairs. They won't leave for a couple hours."

"Excellent. Sorry for the short stay, but I need to get back home."

"Halt! What is she doing here?" The guards immediately took on a decidedly un-sunny disposition at the sight of Ichino.

"She going with me."

The guard looked with quizzical disdain at Naruto.

"You accept full responsibility for her? You will take her away from the village with you?"

"Of course."

"Even knowing who she is?"

Naruto felt slightly confused at this, but figured it couldn't be anything too bad.

"Yep! She's coming with me!"

The guards unblocked the door

"Fine, but know what you are getting yourself into..." the guard said darkly as Naruto exited.

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

The captain of the ship was surprisingly easy to convince into letting the two stow away on his ship. He had heard of the passed out child on the other ship, and merely assumed he was only told of one, and that they wanted back. The captain, thankfully being of the non-psychic variety, didn't want to make a large fuss, and allowed the two to camp in a storage room for the trip.

Oddly, said storage room was the same room Naruto had been in on the other ship, although this one had wood floors. This was a welcome change from the metal he had experienced last time.

The two ate, and were getting tired when Ichino spoke up.

"Naruto?" her voiced sounded slightly pained against the hard walls surrounding them.

"Yeah"

"I'm sorry... but I lied to you earlier..."

"What about?" Naruto's curiosity was definitely piqued.

"I know why the people in Kirigakure hate me."

"Why?"

"I'm from a clan that was said to be cursed. In actuality, we were, but it was made to seem worse than it was. Our founder was cursed, ages ago, by the demon god Randamu, the god of luck. He is where we get our clan name from, but also where we were feared from. Randamu forced his odd brand of luck into our blood, and this is is where our bloodline limit comes from. We have a special jutsu that only we can perform." Ichino started forming seals in front of Naruto, seals which he had never seen before.

"Randamu Shigusa no jutsu..."

There was a poof surrounding Naruto, and he suddenly felt his left sock become rather damp.

"What did you do?!" yelled a slightly frightened Naruto.

"What happened?!?! You aren't hurt, are you?!" Ichino was close to crying from the thought of hurting her new friend.

Naruto pulled his foot out of his shoe. Oddly, the shoe was still dry, only the sock was wet, and even that appeared to be only on the right half. The wet part, however, was now a bright pink, and Naruto was staring in awe at it. Ichino sighed in relief.

"That's exactly the problem, I don't know exactly what I did. The odd luck formed with this jutsu is random. I can direct it at a certain thing, and make it more good or bad, but that's all the control I have over it."

Naruto was in awe, both at the technique, and at the now half-pink sock he was wearing.

"But, I don't get it. How is that a curse?"

"Unfortunately, it isn't a very good shinobi battle technique. I could switch a person's left lung with their brain, or I could simply cut their favorite hat. It is great for distractions, but mostly only to draw attention for a short while.

People, for some reason, fear our ability. I think it has to do with it coming from a demon's curse, but it could easily go wrong. It takes a lot of focus to not lose control of it, and losing it could become very bad. We could flood the area for miles, or even kill everyone in nearby areas. Most people fear us for this, and so banished us. We've lived alone for years, and then..." Ichino started to cry

"...Then... someone killed my family... people called us monsters, and my mom made me run away. I made it into Kiri, but no one liked me there. They tried to attack me... I'd been running and hiding for weeks until... you... saved me..." The little girl had tears streaming from her cheeks by now, and seemed very unstable.

Poor Naruto had no idea of what to do in such a situation, so he did the first thing he could think of. He hugged her. Naruto would later look upon this as one of the more stupid acts of his life, yet also one of the smartest.

Ichino slowly stopped bawling, and Naruto soon heard what sounded like, slow, heavy breathing. Sure enough, she had fallen asleep, and Naruto placed her gently down on the floor before getting up. He looked around, registering for the first time that as this was a storage room, stuff would probably have to be STORED in it. After looking around briefly, he found a door in the wall.

Inside the door was a bookcase, filled with largely empty spots, but a few scrolls littered it. Many were in languages Naruto didn't even hope to understand, but one shone out. It had a bright blue border, and the cover was emblazoned with 'Kiri Jutsu: Beginners'. Naruto hastily pocketed the scroll and made his way back towards the sleeping Ichino. He noticed she was shivering.

Naruto, being the generally standup guy that he is, laid down next to her and wrapped his arms around her. He quickly noticed her stop shivering.

Naruto took this time to contemplate his relationship with the slightly younger girl. His first instinct was that of what he imagined would be a brother to his younger sister. To protect, and help her.

However, he was unsure as to the safety of such an idea. He hardly knew the girl. Then again, they were abandoned from the world by things like mistrust, and probably needed to help each other to survive.

She was like him in many ways, and he just wasn't exactly sure how to feel. Then again, he was only eight, and being in his situation, hardly felt anything besides hunger or fear of other people.

It was this odd train of thought that led young Naruto into the veil of unconsciousness.

jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj

First real chapter done.

These are still coming out slightly shorter than I would like, but that will only get better over time, and when I stop updating daily.

For some reason, I decided to name every chapter the same as a song. Generally the song will have a large relation to the events of the chapter. Yesterday's was New Years Day, by U2. Today's was White Wedding, by Billy Idol. These songs will not hail from a particular genre, and may not even be generally popular songs, but they will be real songs. Once again, I'm not sure why I am doing this, but I am.

For the Randamu (pronounced as ran-dam) bloodline, imagine the infinite improbability drive from the hitchiker's guide to the galaxy. Now make it slightly controllable, and in jutsu form. voila! This will be the dividing point between the main story and this one, though i suppose the mist jutsu scroll might count as well.

second, pairings still open. I've received 2 votes for Ichino, and one for Temari. remember, just because I said I was leaning towards those pairings doesn't means they are the only ones. I just had those in mind originally for the story.

Also, my spell check was busted for this chapter, as I did it in wordpad, and need to re-download OpenOffice. If there are any glaring errors, I may fix them once I get OO back up.

special sorry for lack of humor in this chapter, but it was more of a plot driver, and was kinda hard to fit in.

Enjoy, and reviews are appreciated


	3. The Road Less Travelled

Disclaimer: The only part I own of Naruto is all those translated scans I downloaded years ago.

Sorry for lack of update, but it gives me more time to work on longer chapters. I will plan on updating at least once a week, but it depends on exactly how much my fingers feel like working for me. Also, I re-downloaded OpenOffice, fixed the last chapter's mistakes, and now present this chapter to you!

Song: The Road Less Travelled by Preston Reed

Note: "Randamu Shigusa no jutsu" translates essentially to "random action jutsu". Not the most pretty sounding, but it certainly describes the move perfectly.

Also, for the captains, imagine them looking somewhat like Old Man Ichiraku, the owner of Ichiraku Noodle Bar, at least in the facial expression and looks.

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Naruto felt an odd weight on his stomach as he woke, and proceeded to ignore it, rolling on his side and falling back asleep. This angered the now-awake weight, which happened to be the head of the little girl he had adopted as his friend.

Needless to say, said little girl was very angry at having been awoken in such a crude and oblivious manner.

Naruto was finally awoken; not by the odd weight, but by a stinging red mark on his cheek. He could only conclude that his new friend had something wrong with her. His exact thoughts mirrored something along the lines of "after all, she IS a girl...".

Poor Naruto never even began to imagine the sheer number of stinging red marks he had due on his cheek during his time with Ichino.

He did, however, begin to imagine how hungry he was, after a certain gluttonous organ began to grumble.

"Geez, I'm hungry... Is there any food?"

An equally pained stomach-grumble from the room's other occupant and a withering glance were his only reply.

Naruto decided to do something about his annoying lack of food.

He crossed to the door, and pushed it open. It was stopped about half way through what SHOULD have been empty space.

Naruto subtly glanced at what may have been blocking the door from the other side.

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Ichino was in the small bathroom attempting to complete her morning rituals with a lack of toothbrush, comb, shampoo, shower, or any other toiletries... In essence, she was glaring at her hair in an attempt to somehow psychically fix it, all while contemplating the risks of directing her bloodline at her hair to at least get it to do something.

She was interrupted by a loud yell and a thump.

She looked out, and saw Naruto on the ground near a half opened door, looking rather dazed. The door then opened, and a man stepped out from behind it. She recognized him as the captain they had met yesterday.

"Good morning, sir. What are you doing here?" She found it slightly odd for the captain of the entire ship to be randomly hanging around the storage bays.

"Just checking in on my little stowaways."

"AND FREAKING THE HECK OUT OF US!!!!!" Naruto, as everyone had noticed, was back to consciousness. "What is it with you captains and waiting outside my door?! At least the other guy had the decency to stand IN PLAIN VIEW!!!!"

"I was simply walking down to your room when you opened the door in front of me." The calm expression on the captain's face never once changed. It was almost as though he only had one expression... Like the animator knew he would only be a brief background character and only decided to give him one look...

Creepy...

"Anyways, I came to tell you two that breakfast is served."

"Really, sir? Where?" Ichino was quick to speak before Naruto could start yelling again.

"Look behind you..."

She did, and saw an elaborate spread of different breakfast foods, all of which looked excellent.

"Thank you!" Ichino said, turning to face the man. In his place, however, was a note on paper dangling from the ceiling.

'You're welcome,

The Captain'

Ichino hadn't even heard the man move, and wondered in amazement how he left that fast. She looked to Naruto, and he was completely dumbfounded as well.

"Ano... I think these guys might be ninjas, eh?" he said in a conspiratorial manner.

"Maybe..." Ichino replied. It would explain a lot about the Captain and his odd behaviors, not to mention the magic food.

"Look at all the food! There's so much of it!" For a seven year old, Naruto sure had a way of stating the obvious.

They helped themselves to the meal, stuffing their stomach so full that in hurt to move for a while.

They then proceeded to sleep more.

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Naruto awoke feeling less hungry than he ever had in his life, other than the one time when the Old Hokage had treated him to as much of Ichiraku's Ramen as he could eat, which turned out to be quite a lot. Naruto himself had lost track at eight bowls, but he was sure the Hokage and his wallet remembered the exact amount to this day.

Regardless, Naruto felt very good, and decided to explore a little bit. The Captain had only said they couldn't leave this floor, after all.

Naruto discovered not much of interest in the other rooms in his hall. They were all more storage rooms, and were either packed solid or nearly empty. At the end of the hall, however, he found a stained glass door, which he proceeded to slide open.

He found himself standing on a deck, sticking straight out of the back of the boat. He saw an overhang above him, which he realized was the floor above theirs. He looked all around, and finally understood that this deck was nestled in an alcove of the ship, perfectly hidden to anyone except those on it.

The view of the water was amazing from his vantage point leaning on the railing. The seagulls were flying, following their ship. The wake being kicked up was huge, spraying mist everywhere in huge clouds.

Wait a second...

Spraying... Clouds... Mist...

Why was this all seeming familiar...?

AHA!

With a sudden bolt, Naruto reached into his pocket and pulled out the first thing he felt.

He held it above his head proudly, and could almost swear he saw it spinning slowly, with an accompanying "do do doot DOOOO!!!!" sound.

He then looked, and realized he had pulled out an old, rusted training kunai.

Furious, and slightly embarrassed, he shoved it back in his pocket. This time he felt for the right object, the scroll he found last night. He held it over his head, looking slightly proud.

"do do doo..."

Naruto knew he spoiled the moment though, and decided to stop looking silly and dumb. He was just glad his clothes were orange, not green. He hated green... (AN: if you can't figure out what the reference is by now, you either need to be slapped, or become a bigger Zelda fan)

Naruto unfurled the scroll, looking at the first thing on the list. Water Gathering. After reading the description. Naruto ran back into one of the storage rooms he'd seen and grabbed a bucket. Bringing it back outside, he excitedly tried the seals.

Bird, ram, bird, ram.

Nothing happened...

Bird, ram, bird, ram!

More blatant nothingness...

**BIRD, RAM, BIRD, RAM!!!!!!!!!!**

Nothing happened... Until Naruto got a very foreboding feeling. He opened his eyes, which he had squinted shut in an attempt to force the jutsu to work. He slowly turned his head towards the ocean, but didn't even get halfway before he was swept off his feet by a jet of water spouting straight into him. He was hurled back into the hallway by the force of the torrent.

Ichino awakened to a rather odd sight, which was a puddle of water out in the hallway, with what appeared to be a giant orange fish flailing in the puddle. Upon closer inspection, the giant fish revealed itself to be Naruto, who felt slightly ashamed, though rather cool, for making such a huge jet of water.

He hopped back to his feet and rushed toward the deck, until he slipped and fell onto his back. It was then that he noticed Ichino.

"HI!" he exclaimed, rather energized by the apparently therapeutic giant-waterball-to-the-face treatment.

"What are you doing?" asked a very confused Ichino.

"Training!"

With this, Naruto hopped back onto his feet again, and , more carefully, performed a fast shuffle towards the deck. Ichino followed out of sheer astonishment at the oddities of her apparent savior and friend. She sat down in a dry spot while watching Naruto practice.

He had quickly discerned that trying too hard to force the jutsu wouldn't be very beneficial, so he tried starting from level were it didn't work, then working his way up. He was only in his first year at the academy, so didn't know much about chakra control, but he knew enough to have a basic idea of what he was doing.

This gave slow results at first, but eventually Naruto was able to get a thin stream to rise straight from the surface of the water. At this point, he tried moving it, but lost control and it shattered. He tried again, trying to get better control, but it still broke.

On the third try, Naruto noticed that the part he tried to move would separate from the rest, which would break off. He realized he was focusing on keeping that part up too, and that threw him off. He tried pumping a little bit more chakra in, but that only made the part that broke off with his control bigger. Upon pumping in more chakra, he simply lost control. He knew he had found some type of middle ground, but wasn't sure of what the problem was.

Then, inspiration struck.

He raised up a stream of water again, and broke off a slightly small chunk by trying to move it. Instead of trying to keep the rest of the column going with it, however, he simply let it drop, focusing all his attention on the bit of water he was controlling. He was amazed as he managed to make it float. So amazed, in fact, that he let it drop.

He tried again, and quickly discovered that it was much harder to keep the water floating without a geyser underneath keeping it up. He found that keeping it in a ball was much easier than keeping it in a giant rope, which he supposed made sense. He slowly started trying to pull more water out, and keep it up for longer.

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Ichino, through this entire exchange, had gotten slightly bored, and decided that if she wanted to keep up with the future Hokage next to her, she should train too. She didn't know any water jutsu, though...

Upon looking at the bucket next to Naruto, she got an idea.

"Naruto?"

Said boy was immediately splashed as his concentration broke with a water ball hovering near his head.

"Yes, Ichino?" grumbled the soaking boy, glaring the girl who had made him wet, and was now giggling madly at it.

She fought down her laughter.

"Where did you get that bucket?" she asked politely

"First storage room on the left..." said Naruto confusedly, but went back to training when he saw her get up and leave.

Ichino stole six buckets from the room, and placed them all, evenly spaced, inside on of the empty storage rooms. Standing back a ways and looking at the first bucket, she tried to focus on happy thoughts...

"Randamu Shigusa no jutsu"

"**MONSTER!**"

Ichino snapped her head up. She hadn't been thinking of the villagers... those weren't happy thoughts at all.

She looked depressively at her bucket, which had sprouted rather unpleasant looking twigs and grown rather tan and clear... It looked rather like a rotting onion baby, if she had to describe it, which she certainly did not want to.

She thought about why something good hadn't happened to it, but wasn't able to think of anything.

Passing it as a fluke, she tried again on the second bucket.

"Randamu Shigusa no jutsu"

"**DIE!!!**"

Ichino looked in fear at her bucket proceeded to turn liquidey black, and slowly goop to the floor. Of course, that had to be it... She was still afraid of the Kiri villagers, and couldn't think of anything happy. Not much good had happened to her for the past few weeks anyways, except...

Ichino glanced out the door at the boy standing on the deck. Still soaked, still training hard... still a shining example of what a person should be. He was hard working, honest, and caring. He had quite possibly saved her life from the mob in Kiri, yet he passed it off as nothing. He was, most definitely, a hero to her.

She ducked her head back in, and, looking at the third bucket, focused on the thought of Naruto.

"Randamu Shigusa no jutsu"

The bucket, to her glee, changed into an apple. That was surely a good thing.

"Randamu Shigusa no jutsu"

The fourth bucket sprouted flowers all over it.

The fifth became an odd clay sculpture of a man with horse legs.

The last bucket became a pack of kunai, brand new.

Kunai? Were kunai good things? They could be used for self defense, sure... but they were also deadly weapons. She was aiming for the good side of luck on the buckets, but wasn't sure whether to count the last one as a success or failure...

Naruto came stumbling in, dripping from head to toe. He was also, shivering, though Ichino couldn't tell if that was from the cold or pure glee. She had never seen a wider smile on his face, which was saying something, even though she'd only known him for around a day.

"Ichino, You've gotta see... whoa... What happened here?" Naruto looked around in awe. "Did you do all this... with your bloodline?..."

"Yeah," said Ichino, suddenly feeling self conscious. What if Naruto didn't like her because of this, or grew to fear her? She really needn't have worried, however.

"Cool! Were these what you needed the buckets for? To carry these?"

"Naruto, those used to _be_ the buckets..."

"...seriously? That's awesome! Although that onion thing kinda creeps me out... I think it's looking at me..." Naruto finished in a deadpanned voice.

"Don't be silly. I'm pretty sure I can't make living thing with my bloodline."

Almost as if waiting to prove her wrong, the ugly onion-man got up and walked out, diving off the deck into the ocean. He was never sen again until many years later, when it was found that he had reproduced and... well... we'll save that story for another time. (AN: by the way, I'm imagining the thing to look like the mandrakes from the harry potter movies, just not covered in dirt.)

"...Nevermind..." Ichino felt slightly foolish, but mostly rather sick to her stomach from the sight of the onion thing walking... UGGHH!

"Anyways! You gotta come check this out!" Naruto yelled, running back out onto the deck.

Ichino followed and watched quietly as Naruto formed the seals and created the geyser of water. What was new was the water ALL spouting up into a ball, probably about the size of his head. He then moved it in a circle around him, and then let it drop into the bucket at his feet.

"That was great, Naruto! You were practicing really hard!"

Naruto, in reply, simply turned around and gave a giant grin. He then proceeded to fall forwards onto the ground. Ichino panicked, grabbing him just before he hit the ground.

"I'm fine... just... tired..." And with that, Naruto fell asleep.

Ichino went back to the room they had stayed in to grab a blanket for them, as she had seen one earlier in the day. She then dragged Naruto inside of the doors and closed them. Satisfied that he wouldn't fall off, she curled up next to him and fell asleep.

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Ichino woke up to a bright blue light in her face, and a rhythmic **THUNK** coming from nearby. She opened her eyes, and established the blue light as the sun shining through the stained glass door. She yawned, and, noticing Naruto missing, decided the **THUNK** was probably pretty important.

She only had to look slightly farther down the hall, however, for her answer. Naruto was throwing kunai into the wall, giving off the deep noise.

"Naruto? What are you doing?"

He stopped, hand halfway in his kunai pocket, and looked at her.

"I was just practicing with those new kunai you made yesterday! They're great! All I've ever had were rusty old things, but these are awesome!"

Ichino instantly decided that the kunai were good things, and sat up straighter.

"Naruto, if you'd like... you can keep them."

Naruto's eyes filled with an odd emotion that she couldn't pin down... it looked like sadness, but more happy, like the sad thing had passed. It also looked grateful... very grateful...

"Ichino... Thank you..." Naruto gave her a thankful smile, not a giant grin, but a serious one. He walked over and grabbed the rest of the kunai out of the wall. "I guess I'll have to keep these in good shape then! These are now, officially, my favorite set of kunai! Thanks Ichino-chan!"

Ichino rolled her eyes at the sentimental, yet boisterous, statement from the boy, until her mind stopped for a second. Ichino-_CHAN_? The only person to ever call her that was her mom... She remembered her dead mother for an instant, then pushed it away.

No, she was done crying. Naruto wouldn't cry, so she wouldn't either. She still felt amazed that the boy, with one word, could make her feel so scared, lost, reassured, and courageous all at once, but she assumed it was just more of the natural charm of Uzumaki Naruto.

Said Uzumaki Naruto had just slipped on a patch of still-wet floor while attempting to walk over to her...

Yep, just the natural charm...

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Naruto, after retesting his water gathering, had turned to the next object of his affection on the mist jutsu list. And ooooohhh was it a doozie...

"Kirigakure no jutsu...? Hey, Ichino-chan, have you ever heard of this?"

Ichino stopped poking at her object-that-used-to-be-a-bucket, which at this point had grown several things that might possibly be considered salami... if salami was made out of egg yolks...

"Uhmmm, yeah. It makes a bunch of mist all around you. You can see through it, but your opponent can't. I saw someone use it once before, it looked really cool. I tried learning the basics of it, but never got very far."

"Do you want to learn it with me?"

"Sure!" Ichino looked at her _former_ bucket, which she had decided to practice on in singular that day. "I don't think I can do much more here anyways..."

"Alright, it says to use something like the water gathering, but you also push the chakra out while pulling the water in. The friction of the chakra creates enough heat to steam the water, which is pushed out by the expanding chakra."

Naruto tried, and simply ended up splattering water all around him. Thankfully, they had prepped a few bucket with water beforehand, so they didn't need to worry about running out for a bit.

Ichino had slightly better luck... she was able to get a little bit of steam coming out the top.

Naruto, seeing this, gathered a lot of chakra and pushed it all into the water. The result was much like yesterday's, except instead of streaming into him, it simply exploded in front of his face, knocking him over. Ichino's reaction was much the same as well. Giggling profusely and attempting to hide it.

Naruto felt embarrassed, but son realized that pushing all his chakra into his jutsus never seemed to work out too well for him. He decided to keep it lower, then move up if necessary. He slowly managed to get steam rising out, although not very much.

After working at it for a few hours, both kids managed to get enough mist going to fill the room they were in. The only problem was, since only some belonged to each, that they could see through some, but not other parts. This led to a high stakes game of tag, which eventually turned into a tickling fight, which eventually turned into two small children being passed out on the floor. Thankfully, the mist dissipated after they fell asleep, as it may have raised some odd and slightly inappropriate questions, especially since both were soaking wet.

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The ship pulled into dock early the next morning, but both kids were awake and ready to leave. Rather than wait for the creepy Captain to come back and let them off, they climbed around the side of their deck and dropped off on the end of the pier.

"Where to now, then? This is _your_ home country."

"Well, I was in a bit of a hurry when I first left, okay? I could hardly even see... which is probably why I hit that building..."

"Wait, you ran into a building...?"

"Yeah... Why?" Naruto uneasily scratched the back of his head.

"No reason... I'm just debating whether or not it was really smart for me to follow you here."

"WHAT?!?!?! Please don't leave, Ichino-Chan! You're the only friend I have!"

Ichino stopped in her tracks.

"You consider me your... friend?"

Naruto looked at her, even though he could only see the back of her head.

"Of course. We stick together and help each other, even when we might die..." Naruto walked up behind her and hugged her. "That's what friends do!"

Ichino had never felt so touched, but she didn't want to cry. She told herself that she wouldn't.

"Would you really stay by me... even if we both died...?"

Naruto just smiled. "Yep, no matter what, I'll be there. That's a promise!"

Ichino couldn't take it. She hadn't done anything for this boy, yet he had saved her life, taken her away from people who hated her, taught her, treated her excellently, and... just promised to die for her... She was only six, and had gone through way too much for someone her age, but she couldn't help but feel totally lost, even though she'd stood up to everything before. So she did the only thing she could.

She turned and hugged him back.

Naruto was flabbergasted, but just kept hugging her until she stopped crying. He didn't say anything, and had no idea what to say, so he just stood there.

Eventually, her tear well dried up, and she was done crying.

"Right... Where are we going?" said the more-than-slightly embarrassed Ichino.

"I was thinking we'd just ask someone here where the ninja village is. I'm sure someone here would know.

And so the two wandered about, asking this person or that person, and maybe even that one person way over there, to try and find someone who knew where the shinobi village was. Eventually, they hit the gold mine. Figuratively, of course.

"Aye, the ninja village... Go ou' the wes' side o' town, and follow the path. Abou' a mile in, you'll hi' a fork. Take the righ' path, and you'll en' up in the village soon enou'." The fellow was rather old, and seemed to be missing an eye, but the youths didn't question him. They were only young, after all.

So the two prepared to saddle up, once again figuratively, when they realized they didn't have something that was very important to traveling. Namely, supplies.

Using their uber leet-ninja-skillz, they stole an apple from an unmanned and unwatched cart.

"Naruto, I think we're gonna need a little bit more than an apple."

"Want me to steal another?" Naruto started to stand up.

"No," said Ichino, pulling him back down. "We should get a backpack with food for us each... maybe a sleeping bag."

Naruto looked slightly disappointed. He liked stealing the apple. It was all the rush of being a real shinobi, without all the life threatening danger and all that.

"I'm sorry, but those take money, which we don't have..."

"You don't..." Ichino pulled out a piece of paper from her pocket. It was a 20 ryou bill. "You forget, I came from a clan. This is all I had on me when I left, but we had lots more."

Naruto felt very poor and helpless, but knew that it was a good thing that Ichino had the money.

"Fine, we'll go buy the stuff..."

Finally, armed with backpacks, food, and a blanket, the two set off along their path.

"Naruto... about earlier."

"Yeah?"

"Thank you..."

"It's no problem."

"I'm sorry about crying on you..."

"Ichino-chan..." Naruto stopped, turning to look her in the eye. "It's alright to cry when you're happy."

And with that, Naruto turned and started walking again.

Ichino felt amazed that he could do that. That he could instill feelings in others in a heartbeat, whether they wanted to feel them or not. It was an awesome ability, but was also very frightening.

"Ah! Here's the fork!" Naruto exclaimed, breaking Ichino out of her thoughts. Naruto took the right path.

"Come on! E said it was this way to the ninja village! Konoha ho!"

Indeed, they were heading towards the ninja village, but not the one they though of. A common mistake when one hears 'the ninja village' would be to immediately assume it was the one belonging to your country. Another would be to assume you were still in your home country after running a very long way from home.

As it was, The port town Uzumaki Naruto had passed out in was actually on the Wind side of the Wind/Fire country border.

If one were to look at their position from a map, they would see the two following a path toward a tiny dot. The dot would look _almost_ exactly how they expected it to. It would read 'Hidden Village of the...'. Except that the last word would not be "Leaves'.

It would be 'Sand'.

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Second chapter FINISHED!!!!!! and this chapter bumps me up to the 10,000 word milepost, which should make it seem more appealing. I know I don't usually read fics shorter than that, so I can understand, though everyone has to start somewhere.

Pairings still open, though from the 3-1 ratio, Ichino-chan seems to be the leader, over Temari, even though no one else has even been voted for.

BTW, yes, they will meet Temari in sand. Either way, no pairings will happen for a while, as the kid is only seven... give him a bit of a break, neh?

Once again, reviews appreciated, and mistakes pointed out appreciated too.

Farewell.


	4. Desert Rose

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. It belongs to the actual author of Naruto, whose name escapes me at the moment. Soon enough, Naruto will belong to the zombie overlords, but that's an entirely different subject.

Alright, chapter took long enough, but should hopefully be long enough to satiate you guys for a bit. Writing should come more quickly soon. Read profile for details, and I will update progress on chapters there every now and then as well.

I now present chapter four, named after "Desert Rose", by Sting, featuring Cheb Mami. A very interesting song, by the way, I fully recommend it.

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_If one were to look at their position from a map, they would see the two following a path toward a tiny dot. The dot would look almost exactly how they expected it to. It would read 'Hidden Village of the...'. Except that the last word would not be "Leaves'._

_It would be 'Sand'._

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Naruto trudged along, his legs feeling more dysfunctional with each step. His throat was parched dry, and his eyes were squinted shut, barely holding back the harsh, desert sun. He was getting tired, and could feel his consciousness ebbing in and out. He wasn't sure if he could go on much longer. He could almost feel his skin bubbling...

Meanwhile, Ichino walked pleasantly alongside him. She had a spare shirt wrapped around her head in a turban style, blocking the sun from view. She had taken off her shoes, which made it easier to grip the sand, and also felt nicer on her feet. She idly sipped at a canteen, all the while glancing oddly at Naruto out of the corner of her eye.

Naruto collapsed. He just couldn't go on anymore. He reached out a hand, as if trying desperately to drag himself onward during the last seconds of his life.

Ichino just rolled her eyes and giggled at the boy's overacting theatrics.

"Ready to try my turban idea, Naruto?"

Naruto, face down in the sand, mumbled back.

"No. It looks dumb, and I'm not going to be beaten by some giant ball of light."

Unfortunately, opening his mouth had the effect of allowing sand to flow inside, and he leaped up, sputtering and attempting to get the horridly dry substance out of his mouth.

"Ready to get a drink from the canteen, Naruto?"

Naruto just glared daggers at the water holder in her hands.

"NO! It takes more than dehydration to bring down the future HOKAGE! Not even the stars can bring me down! The gods themselves quake in fear of me! All the world will bow down to my gloriousness, as I...!!!"

He was cut off as the sand beneath him slid around, throwing him off balance. He fell, and slid to the bottom of the sand dune they were on, which thankfully had some shade. (AN: He only knows the word dehydration because I'm assuming they have SOME basic covering of survival in the academy, even if very basic. Water gathering, and it's necessities, would be at the forefront of that, so that's the only reason he should know such an advanced word. I'm attempting to keep their vocabulary down to young level, but they are bright...)

Ichino walked pleasantly down, and simply looked at him, smirking in a slightly smug manner. He couldn't have been more obvious if there was a neon sign above him with **EMBARRASSED** and an arrow pointed at him. She walked up and, without a word, placed a canteen and a shirt on Naruto's stomach.

Soon, Naruto was walking alongside Ichino, grumbling, but looking otherwise healthy, what with his snazzy shirt-turban and all.

Ichino was beginning to grow suspicious as to why there were so few leaves in the country that was known for it's village being hidden in said leaves. These thoughts had stirred together in her head for a while, and were stating to become annoying.

"Naruto? Did you come along this way when you came to the port?"

Naruto looked upwards, thoughtful.

"No, actually. I ran into a coastline, and followed that to the village."

Up ahead of him, Ichino had a frozen look on her face, stopped at the top of the dune they were on.

"...I definitely think we went the wrong way..."

Naruto pulled up beside her, and looked at the domed housed, great gates, and large village... all looking to be made out of rock and sand. Remembering pictures from the academy history lessons, he spoke up.

"Yep, this is definitely **Suna**gakure!" (Hidden Sand)

He beamed, proud that he could remember this piece of info, while Ichino looked about ready to kill.

Naruto quickly realized his mistake.

"W-We must have taken a wrong turn or something, I'm sure they'll help us sort it out." He said, waving his hands in a placating, yet slightly guarding, way in front of him.

At the angry twitch of her eye, Naruto bolted for the gate, trying madly to escape, and hopefully end the fury of, the angered girl behind him.

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Kodaima Zamu was currently not enjoying himself. His day had been ruined, and any plans he had were shot to hell. He was bored out of his mind, and would almost rather someone murdered someone just so something would happen.

Yep, just another day on guard duty at the village gate.

Here he was, a (if he said so himself) powerful chuunin, forced into a mindless, degrading, and time-consuming waste of a day.

He was so wrapped in his thoughts he almost missed the yelling sound that was rapidly approaching him. He turned slightly, catching an orange blur racing towards him out of the corner of his eye. He quickly grabbed a kunai and flung it. It hit, dead on, in the path of the blur. All Zamu heard was an "OOMPH!" sound before the blur catapulted itself over the spike, rolling and hitting Zamu in the leg.

He looked with only slight disinterest at the small boy sitting dazed at his feet. The boy quickly righted himself and scampered, hiding behind the chuunin's legs. He wondered aimlessly what the hell was going on, until he felt his shirt being tugged on rather forcefully. He looked down at the small girl holding his shirt in a fist, glaring so hard at him that he could almost feel the back of his head catching on fire.

Zamu scooted slightly to the right. He could have beaten the girl easily, but she looked rather pissed, and didn't want to be the center of her anger.

Unfortunately for Naruto, _he_ was, and this was proven a few moments later by the large red welts swelling on the head of the dazed boy, who was being dragged by his assaulter.

"May we be go in, sir?" asked Ichino, putting on a sweet face for the chuunin guard. It didn't work, especially after he had seen her little tirade a moment ago.

"Who are you?" standard first question for potential immigrants.

"Randamu Ichino, of Kiri. Uzumaki Naruto no baka of Konoha. He's the idiot that led us here."

Zamu started to understand what had happened here, as it was obvious they had gotten lost. He still wondered why two kids would be wandering around together. Suddenly, something clicked. They had given villages! And Kiri was one of their enemies! He quickly pulled a kunai, dropping into stance.

"You are foreign ninja?"

Poor little Ichino was completely unprepared for a knife at her throat, so was understandably freaked when she replied.

"N-N-No. He's only in his first year, and I-I haven't started yet."

Of course, Zamu reasoned. They'd have to be prodigy to be that young. Then again, that would almost have been more cause for alarm. Either way, he dropped his stance, but kept his kunai out as he checked for henge or any dangerous items. Finding none, he allowed them in, with orders to report to the Kazekage's office for instructions.

Naruto, who had awoken after the attempt on his life by the all-too-innocent looking little girl who was a year his junior, was staring around in amazement. They had no idea where they were, and so took their dear, sweet time in getting to the Kazekage's office, which they also had no idea of the location of.

By the time they had gotten directions and arrived, it was late afternoon, probably around 5:30. They went in and waited for what seemed like days to the impatient youths, but was really only a few hours. Finally, it was their turn.

"NEXT!" bellowed a voice from inside the door.

Being the next, Naruto and Ichino entered, glancing about curiously. Neither had been in a Kage's office before; at least, Naruto couldn't remember the times he had been.

"Sit. What do you wish to discuss?"

Naruto started to speak up, but was silenced by a look from Ichino as she began to speak instead.

"Sir, we were meaning to go back to Konohagakure, but got lost along the way. We would like to ask for a home for a day or two to rest, and supplies to get back home. We have no more money."

Naruto looked in amazement at Ichino and her politeness, but just figured it was another thing she had learned from her clan. He felt a slight bit of jealousy creep into his stomach, but pushed it away. He should be happy she had had family, not mad that _he _didn't.

"Hmmm. I understand your plight..." Naruto felt confused, not knowing what the word meant. "I feel sympathetic for your burden, and will allow you to stay one night in our village. You will leave tomorrow by noon, with supplies granted by us. This time, they will include a map" He finished with a slight smirk on his features. Naruto didn't see all too much wrong with this guy. He was kinda sarcastic, and cocky, but seemed pretty cool.

"Where are we staying, Kazekage-sama?"

He glanced up at them, looking levelly at their eyes.

"I will allow you to stay in one of the spare rooms of our household. I have three children around your age... As a matter of fact..." He trailed off. "TEMARI! KANKURO! Get in here!"

Two children walked in through the side door of his office. They looked decidedly bored, as if cutting their own arms off would have been better than simply sitting in their out-of-the-way side room, filing paperwork for their dad.

The boy was dressed in a full-body jumpsuit, which was black, with what appeared to be cat ears coming off the top of his head. He was also wearing white face-paint, which made Naruto snicker.

The girl was dressed in what appeared to be a battle kimono... for little kids. To anyone above the age of 14, it would have looked adorably cute. To Naruto, it looked rather pretty. To Ichino... well... she didn't much care, until she saw Naruto staring, and started to get slightly mad. She really had no idea WHY she was getting mad all of a sudden, but she was. At this revelation, she merely felt puzzled, though still slightly mad.

"Temari, Kankuro. These are Uzumaki Naruto and Randamu Ichino. They will be our guests over night, and will be leaving tomorrow. Please treat them nicely.

Both Temari and Kankuro bowed their heads slightly and mumbled a bored greeting. Ichino bowed and greeted them... Naruto... Naruto just Grinned very widely... and _waved_...

...Naruto really needed to learn social graces...

"My children, you may return home now. I wish to speak to these two for another moment."

Both Kankuro and Temari bolted out the door for fear of doing more paperwork, and the Kazekage turned to the only two left in the room.

"I must warn you of my other child. His name is Gaara, and he is slightly... unstable. He doesn't even speak to me anymore, but he may be dangerous if angered. I would advise you two to leave him alone if you can."

They both nodded, and upon receiving directions, set off to find their temporary dwelling. Not knowing their way, they still became slightly lost, but weren't completely off the chosen path. As it was, they were off the chosen path _just_ enough to hear a shout from nearby.

"MONSTER!"

Both quickly bolted towards each other, until they realized they were hugging, at which point they sprang apart. They then turned, back to back, to guard against any attackers. They expected almost anything.

One of the few things they did _not_ expect, however, was for a boy, red-haired, and about their age, to fall to the ground next to them. A man jumped down, walking dangerously up to the boy.

"Your father** hated **you, as did I! He **hired** me to kill you, since you killed his wife, and I was all too happy to oblige!"

The boy next to the two looked at them, panicked.

"Please, leave..." he whispered.

"DIE!" The man charged at the boy, completely ignoring the other two in the street.

Just as he swiped his knife at the boy, his hand was stopped, by what appeared to be a wall of sand. The sand guarded the frightened looking boy, who was starting to look less frightened by the second, against any other attacks made.

Suddenly, the man was blasted away by the sand, and Naruto could see the boy. He was glowing, and looked positively murderous.

The sand gathered in a cloud all around the man, and in a rather odd anticlimax, squished him in about a second.

Naruto shivered as the boy turned towards them, glaring.

"W-Why Haven't You L-left yet?! I-I'm Not I-In Cont-trol!!!!"

The boy looked to be fighting himself in his mind, but suddenly stopped. He glared, evilly, yet emotionlessly, up at the two. He raised his hand, and flicked a finger at them. Out of nothing, a wave of sand began to race towards them. No, not _them_, Naruto noted... _her_!

He ran, pushing Ichino down onto the ground and getting scooped up by the sand as it flew past. He was brought around, bound by the sand, and held aloft in front of the red-haired boy. The boy raised his hand, opening it, then closing it, as if snatching something out of the air.

Naruto saw sand flying at him from every direction, and quickly saw everything go black.

lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Thought about stopping here, but I'm not THAT evil... plus the chapter would have been really short, and that would be even worse to me.

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Naruto opened his eyes, looking around. All he saw was black. He couldn't even feel the ground underneath him, he just felt... floaty. It didn't help that he couldn't see anything. He could have been falling, for all he knew. He couldn't really feel gravity, but even still...

Naruto tried moving, and found that everything was working properly. He tried actually moving somewhere, but that failed miserably. So he was stuck, floating in the middle (or so he assumed, it could have just as easily been the edge) of a giant, black room.

He wondered how he got here, then remembered the red-haired boy. Was he dead? Was Ichino dead? ICHINO! What happened to her?!

'I wish I could see what the heck happened...'

Naruto was panicking almost too much to notice a small square patch of light appearing in front of him. He finally realized it was there, and squinted in confusion at it. He saw shapes moving around vaguely on it, but the shape slowly started getting clearer. Finally, it revealed itself to be a TV. Something was happening on screen, but Naruto couldn't make it out.

'That thing needs to be bigger...'

Almost as if responding too his thoughts, the screen grew to almost theater size proportions. Naruto could clearly make out what was going on now, and was amazed to see the red haired boy in the screen. It looked like he was being viewed by someone else, from the first-person.

He stretched out his hand towards the screen, and seemed to snatch something out of midair. Naruto saw sand flying all around the person being held, as they took a quick glance towards a girl on the ground.

"Wait a sec... that's Ichino..."

Naruto was feeling more confused by the second... then something clicked...

That was _him_ on the screen... but why was he seeing his own death on a screen?

Then, something happened. The sand was closing around him, when there was a bright flash. Naruto could see he almost looked like he was on fire, but the fire wasn't hurting him... he saw the sand around him fall back, scattering towards the floor. He glared over at the boy, who looked positively scared. Not frightened, dead-out **scared**. The boy muttered something in his shock.

"Kyuubi..."

Naruto had no idea what was happening. Wasn't the Kyuubi that fox that attacked Konoha years ago? What did he have to do with anything? He was dead...

On the screen, Naruto rushed at the boy, practically clawing at him. The boy used all of his sand to try and defend, but it was moved aside like it wasn't even there. The boy was shouting.

"Kyuubi, I didn't know it was you! Please don't be angry!" The boy's voice had a definite guttural tone to it, far different from what it was earlier.

"Shukaku..." Naruto's own voice now sounded different, too. Much deeper, and almost... demonic...

Naruto was completely lost at this point. He had no idea of what was happening, and it was pretty freaky watching himself do stuff with no control over what was actually happening. It was as if someone else was using his body, and he was just in the passenger seat...

Oh, how right he was...

By now, screen Naruto had broken through the boy's sand, and was actually clawing at his stomach. Naruto noticed they weren't very deep, but healed extremely quickly, leaving black lines behind. Quickly, a large mass of lines, in what Naruto recognized as a seal, had appeared above his claw-marks. Something about the seal looked off, though. It seemed to cut off about halfway down, with a sudden end.

Naruto saw himself slashing near this seal, and the slash marks seemed to connect and make another pattern, much like the top, but closing that part off. By the time the slash marks healed, Naruto could see a complete pattern formed both by the old seal and the new lines. The red haired boy proceeded to stop glowing, and fell to the ground. The sand stopped levitating as well, simply dropping to the ground.

"I'm not angry, but if you kill that boy, you'll die too, and we don't want _that_ happening," Naruto's odd voice spoke.

A look of confusion, then understanding passed over the boy's face before he passed out. Naruto saw the flames around him die down before the screen went black.

"Huh? Stupid thing..."

Naruto kicked the box, which only proceeded in hurting his foot. He grumbled, but slowly noticed that he was getting more and more tired. With a yawn, he slumped over and fell asleep.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Ichino looked positively freaked. She had no idea what happened, but Naruto had somehow beaten this boy. She looked over at the two unconscious youths, wondering what to do. She quickly noted that they were very near the Kazekage's house, and started dragging the two boys towards the address they were given.

It took her about fifteen minutes, but she finally managed to get both of them to the house. She didn't even ring the doorbell, but practically bashed the door open. All this was rather unnecessary, as the door was perfectly unlocked, but it made her feel slightly more heroic and cool...

Naruto was rubbing off on her way too much...

"Kazekage-sama! We have an emergency!' She nearly screamed into the house.

In a poof of smoke, the man had appeared right in front of them, noting the unconscious boys, and dragging them to a couch. He looked in amazement at the fact that not only was Gaara unconscious, but they weren't being attacked by the demon inside of him.

"Who did this...?" he asked, not completely sure that he _really_ wanted to know.

"Naruto did, sir. A man attacked that boy, and he killed the man, then seemed to go mad and attack us. He caught Naruto, and was about to kill him, when Naruto started glowing orange... he grew a... tail... as well. He started ripping through the sand attacking the boy. He made a bunch o marks on his stomach, then they both passed out," recalled Ichino, still in a slight state of shock at the events.

The Kazekage, however, panicked, and wrenched Gaara's shirt up. He channeled a slight bit of chakra into the boy's stomach, and actually gasped when the seal appeared. He was no seal expert, but he noted that the incomplete ends of the seal were somehow... finished. He couldn't find a loose strand anywhere he looked. He looked down at the girl.

"We'll get them to a bed so they can recover. By the way, this boy is my son, Gaara." He gestured to the boy, as Ichino got a look of understanding on her face. "Let's go"

He picked the two boys up, and brought them upstairs. He placed Gaara on his own bed, then brought Naruto over to the guest room he was supposed to be staying in.

"You should get some rest too. I'll check on all of you in the morning."

With that, he shut the door, leaving the two alone.

Ichino sat on the bed next to Naruto, just looking at him. Her face was completely blank, as she thought of what had happened. He had saved her. That boy was going to squish her just like the other man, and Naruto _saved_ her. She couldn't have done what he had, she would have died in a heartbeat, or lack thereof. He had promised to risk his life for her, and he had done so at a moment's noticed. This boy, who she had known for only a few days, had already saved her more times than she cared to imagine, done more for her than anyone else.

And he always did it with a smile...

Ichino just curled up next to the boy, crying, and gave him a kiss on the cheek before falling asleep.

He at least deserved that much.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Ichino woke up with the sun in her eyes, and squinted against it, fighting futilely. She slowly sat up, blinking the sleep out of her eyes, when she noticed that girl from before, Temari, sitting on a chair, just staring at Naruto.

Ichino blinked again, and she was still there.

"What's up...?" she asked quizzically.

Temari just stared at her, her face blank.

"My dad told me what happened... Gaara's sleeping right now..." Her voice sounded more like she was in shock than anything.

"So? He's probably just still recovering."

"No, he's _sleeping_. Now. In the next room... We should all be dead..."

Ichino just quirked an eyebrow, while Temari turned back towards Naruto.

"Did he really do it?"

"Do what?"

"Beat Gaara...? Seal his demon...? _LIVE_ after Gaara attacked him...? Any _one_ would be just amazing..."

Ichino still felt confused, but figured she might as well give some answers to get some answers.

"Yeah, he beat Gaara. But what demon are you talking about? I didn't see a demon..."

Temari just looked at her, her face still in that pale, shocked look.

"_Gaara_ is the demon... or _has_ the demon... It was sealed in him when he was born... It's driven him crazy... He can't sleep, or it takes over... seal not being finished, or something..."

Ichino suddenly understood. _That_ was what Naruto had done... he had finished the seal...

But how? Naruto knew nothing of sealing from what she knew, and this sounded like pretty advanced stuff. Far beyond a seven year old just starting the academy. Ichino just gazed at Naruto. What else was the boy capable of?

Temari spoke up suddenly.

"If you can, please tell someone when he wakes up. My dad wanted to know when..."

She was interrupted by a yawn coming from the bed. Naruto had woken up.

"...Never mind..."

Naruto just looked up, blinking away the sun, then turned to face them.

"Hey Ichino-chan, Temari... What's up...?" The boy mumbled sleepily.

Temari just walked over, bending down to give him a hug. She then left, leaving Naruto awake, yet very confused...

"What just happened...?" He asked, directing it at Ichino, who was currently getting mad at Temari. She still couldn't tell why, but she was.

"Nothing... You're gonna have to talk to the Kazekage later on, just so you know."

Naruto looked surprised, but remember what he saw happen... It made sense, he supposed.

"When...?"

"Now." Spoke a voice from the door, which opened more to reveal the Kazekage walking through.

"Hey, Kazekage Ojii-san!" shouted Naruto.

The Kazekage's eye twitched slightly, but he still kept perfectly calm. Until he walked up and bowed.

Naruto looked confused.

"Ne, Ojii-san... why are you bowing...?"

The Kazekage stood back up, and pulled a chair next to the bed.

"Because, Naruto, you have done what most thought impossible. You have defeated my son, and you fixed his seal, allowing him to not be attacked by his demon."

Naruto looked completely lost, but one thing clicked.

"Wait, your son. That was... Gaara, right?"

"Yes. I've had my best seal expert examine what you did. I cannot thank you enough."

"Wait, what happened to Gaara?"

The Kazekage sighed in a mournful manner, then started explaining.

"When Gaara was born, He had the demon Shukaku sealed into him. I did not want it at first, but the council out voted me, and I eventually thought it may have helped him become a strong shinobi. But the seal was incomplete... he was being attacked constantly by the demon, in an attempt to break free. He couldn't even sleep at night, for the demon would take advantage of his lapse in consciousness to possess him. This, combined with various assassination attempts, have left him slowly growing insane. I believe that with your completed sealing of the demon, he will be able to return to normal."

Shukaku... Naruto remembered, from last night. But how had he known that, at the time? How _had_ he sealed the demon... what the hell had happened last night, anyways...?

"Thank you Ojii-san..." Twitch. "But please don't give me so much credit. I'm only glad I was able to help."

"Nevertheless, you are now officially considered a welcome guest f Sunagakure, and are welcome here whenever you wish."

"Thank you very much. Can I please see Gaara?"

The man simply nodded, and stood up to leave, giving a 'follow' gesture. Ichino helped Naruto up, and they walked towards where he led them. They entered the room, only to find an awakened Gaara.

"You!" he hissed, almost in fear. "I won't let you kill me!"

"Stop!... I'm not here to hurt you." Naruto held his hand up, waving them placatingly. Gaara looked at him suspiciously.

"What do you want then...?"

"I simply wanted to check on you. How are you"

Gaara paused, then relaxed slightly, still keeping his guard up.

"I'm fine... Shukaku has stopped trying to break my mind... What did you do?"

"I apparently finished the seal on your stomach, which should keep him out of here" He poked his head, looking rather silly. Gaara couldn't help but to smirk, letting his guard down.

"What is your name?"

"I am Uzumaki Naruto! The future Hokage!" The boy was beaming at this point, looking happy like he normally did. Gaara got up and stood in front of him, holding a hand out.

"I am Sabaku no Gaara. I don't know what you did, but you helped me. Thank you."

Naruto shook his hand, then his stomach decided to introduce itself. Naruto scratched the back of his head.

"Hehe... got any food...?"

Gaara simply quirked one of his non-eyebrows, and led them down to the kitchen. They made breakfast, consisting of oatmeal and cereal, and no sooner had they finished then did Kankuro turn up. He walked to a chair, clapping Naruto on the back as he passed.

"Food, smells good. Kid, nice job by the way. I don't have to worry about being squished in my sleep anymore." Gaara looked slightly hurt, but Kankuro winked, and they all knew he was joking. Temari walked in, laughing at the exchange as well.

"So, when are you two leaving anyways...?" She wasn't in too much of a hurry to see them leave. They were actually pretty cool.

"Actually, we probably have to leave soon. I do need to get back to Konoha, and I probably can't miss too much of class... we just need some supplies."

Kankuro gulped down a bite of cereal.

"Actually, Dad told us he left bags for you guys at the door, for when you decided to go."

Naruto looked slightly sad. He liked these people, but knew they had to go. Besides, the Kazekage _had_ told them to leave by noon. He'd also said they were welcome anytime, so that probably didn't apply anymore, but better to be on the safe side and not wear out their welcome.

"Thanks guys. It was nice meeting all of you, but we had probably better get going."

They went over to their bags, and packed everything into their backpacks. Ichino grabbed the map, making sure Naruto had no access to it. She didn't want to risk getting lost again.

"We'll see you guys. You should visit again sometime," Kankuro said.

"Yeah, and if you're ever in Konoha, feel free to look me up! My place may be small, but you'd save money on a hotel!" At this point, Gaara spoke up.

"Naruto, we are children of the village leader. Money isn't a problem, but we still may take you up on that offer."

He reached out to shake Naruto's hand, who gladly accepted. Kankuro clubbed him on the shoulder, and Temari hugged him tightly, kissing him on the cheek.

"Thanks for everything..." She then looked rather embarrassed, which Naruto thought was rather cute.

Naruto simply flashed them his my-teeth-are-brighter-than-the-friggin-sun smile and pivoted sharply, pointing a finger to the sky.

"Konoha HO!" He proceeded to march forward, until Ichino shouted at him.

"Naruto, Konoha's _this_ way. That would take us to Iwa!" (Rock)

He stopped, feeling rather foolish.

"I know that, I just figured since we were adventuring anyways..."

"NO! You are NOT getting us lost again!"

He pivoted again, this time facing the right direction.

"Fine then! Konoh...never mind..."

Everyone just chuckled at him as him and Ichino set off towards Konoha, this time making sure they were going the right way.

ttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

Well, there's chapter 4. and a bit to say.

It's not terribly long, but for taking a only few hours to write, I'm proud of it. It would have come out sooner, but I didn't like the first one and decided to rewrite it. Typing should be faster now that I'm getting an actual computer desk, so that should also help.

One of the reviews I received was extremely complimentary. Because of this, I'm dedicating the chapter to **matsusama**, whose review got me off my fat duff to finish rewriting the chapter. I'm honestly not sure if he confused my story with someone else's, but it still felt good to be praised as such.

Next, there will be definite competition between Temari and Ichino over Naruto. The winner hasn't been decided yet, though most people have voted for Ichino.

I feel like I'm letting down the guy who asked for a harem, as I'm sure other would want that too, but I just couldn't pull it off. I read one recently, with tentenxnarutoxtemari. Very good story, I loved it. But the relationship aspect just felt kind of shallow to me. It just wasn't realistic. (I'm not bashing here, just saying why I couldn't do it) one person, having multiple girls, just doesn't happen that often unless the guy is cheating. I DEFINITELY don't want that, but I'm trying to focus on realistic personalities here, so I don't want to try and pull off something I'd fail miserably at.

Anyways, sorry for the delayed release, and please review. They make me feel better, and at least know if I'm doing a good or bad job. Criticism is fine, as long as it isn't flaming.

Peace out, Y'all!


	5. The Trooper

Right, definitely got the new desk. Works wonders. My typing speed has at least doubled. Unfortunately, I took forever in getting this out... Not sure why...

I realize now that I didn't clear up some things in the last chapter. The man attacking Gaara was supposed to be Uncle Yashamaru. I couldn't remember much of his character, nor even his name, and he played such a little part that I didn't feel it necessary to scope out his character much. More, however, will be explained later, touching on his motives and such.

I also should note that Gaara's dad, the Kazekage, is NOT an evil... _person_... in this story. He is the nice (ish) guy he seems to be. The "I was hired to kill you" thing was purely to get at Gaara's mind. This **will** become an issue later as, as Gaara won't know who to trust as far as that goes, but as Naruto is blissfully unaware of the situation, you won't hear of any of that until later.

Also, for schedules. I'm going to assume, even though it slightly goes against official ages, that the academy classes are instated every 6 months. You would start whenever, after you turn a certain age, and the graduations are also held every six months, after you've done your 6 or so years of training. This would explain how Naruto could fail twice, yet still not be two years older than the rest of his classmates. This WILL put him half a year ahead of Neji/Lee's class, and two years ahead of Sasuke/Sakura/everyone else's. Meaning he is a year older than canon team 7's year... I only hope I explained that well enough. Ichino will be in that class (Sasuke/etc.), but Naruto will be a year ahead, which is half a year ahead of Neji/etc... right then...

Also, Mizuki teaches the younger classes, and Iruka teaches the upper half of them. They both do examinations, though.

If anyone needs clarification on that, ask...

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Naruto was tired.

Naruto _was _very tired.

Naruto was so tired, in fact, that he had somehow managed to fall asleep while walking. He had fallen down after about only thirty seconds of this odd phenomenon, but it was still enough to confuse his traveling partner.

So, Ichino set to making camp, even going to the extra care as to set up the tent _around_ Naruto so as to avoid leaving him out in the rain, or to stop him from getting ravaged by wild animals.

How thoughtful...

She wondered exactly _why_ Naruto was so tired. He seemed to have slept fine through the last night, although he was mumbling quite a bit. She figured he must have had a bad dream, and just decided to let it go. He'd probably be fine in the morning, after all.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Naruto woke up, feeling oddly dizzy. He felt slightly lost, but at least recognized through his blurred vision that he was in the tent. He saw a large patch of blonde next to him, and figured that it was Ichino.

He couldn't remember why he felt so groggy, but he felt horrible. Some weird dream or something... He could only remember a giant set of teeth before he had woken up.

He slowly wandered outside the tent, feeling himself lose balance with almost every step. He was getting a headache from the loud noise all around him, which he thought was odd, considering they were in the middle of a forest with no one else around. He heard water over all the clatter, and set off to find it.

He kept walking for about 200 yards before finding a very small stream, and wondered groggily as to how he could have heard said stream from his tent, which he noted was quite a large distance _from_ the stream. A loud noise, sounding like a cricket cricketing into a bullhorn, chose that moment to spring up beside him.

With an odd screech, he fell directly into the water.

Getting out, he realized everything was much, much quieter, and he couldn't hear half of the things that were bothering him earlier, and what he could hear was a lot less loud.

He pondered about what made everything so quiet, when he heard a rather loud explosion coming from the trees to his left. He only had a brief amount of time to ponder this, before a very large shape hurtled towards him out of the bushes.

He barely ducked, causing said large shape to hit it's head on a rock, knocking it unconscious. Naruto saw this was a person, a ninja, if you were judging by the headband.

Of course, if you were judging by the headband, you'd also notice the odd shape on it that showed that the ninja was from Konoha. You might also notice the rather large gash through the headband, labeling the man as a nukenin (missing ninja) of the village. That part was also pretty important...

A man came wandering from the bushes where the nukenin had just flown from. He had oddly spiky silvery hair, an oddly positioned headband over his right eye, and was reading an oddly illustrated little orange book.

If one were to look in a Bingo book from **any** of the main shinobi villages, and even many of the lesser ones, one would find a picture of this man. It would list his great skills as a ninja, his horribly destructive personal jutsu, and his name. "Hatake 'Copycat' Kakashi"

Naruto only needed on look at his book's cover to know what to call him...

"Hey ero-nin (perverted ninja), what's the idea, trying to hit me?!"

Kakashi just looked at him over the book, his look not mean, but not entirely filled with happy, either... He just looked decidedly bored. Without a word, he put his book away and pulled out a kunai.

"WHAT THE CRAP!?!?" Naruto shouted, pulling out a kunai of his own and dropping into what he hoped looked like a skilled defensive position...

It didn't.

Kakashi just sighed.

"Kid, put your knife away, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm from your village, after all."

Naruto didn't relax.

"Yeah, but most people don't exactly treat me nicely there." He added a bit of a glare, but there was too much of a hint of sadness for it to look even slightly threatening to the experienced jounin.

Kakashi just sighed, feeling a little bitter towards the damnable general populace of Konoha and their inability to see past their petty fear.

"Naruto..." Naruto looked surprised that the man knew his name. "I'm not going to hurt you. I actually knew you when you weren't even out of diapers, so don't go around threatening me. Besides, if I really wanted you dead, you _would_ be by now."

Naruto felt awed that this man apparently knew him. He figured he'd might as well trust him for now.

"Fine, but why did you pull a kunai out...?"

"Oh. Right. I'd turn away if I were you."

"What are you...!!!...BLAAGHHHAGGHH!"

Naruto's stomach was quickly emptied as he watched Kakashi stab the unconscious nukenin in the neck, killing him, then stabbing his stomach, ripping it open and pulling something out.

"WHAT THE CRAP!?!?!?!"

Kakashi was washing the object extremely carefully in the stream, and Naruto could see now that it was a scroll.

"Why... Why did that guy have a scroll in his belly...?..." questioned the still sickly Naruto.

"He hid it there after I cornered him" replied the disgustingly nonchalant jounin.

"...Oh... What _is_ it...?"

Kakashi just rolled the scroll up and put it in his pocket.

"It's a secret... A very important secret, but still a secret."

Naruto looked slightly put out, but quickly got back to his main point.

"But... W-why did you have to _kill_ him...?"

Kakashi just looked at him in slight annoyance, before remembering how young the kid was.

"Well... he would have killed me, and I didn't want that to happen... He had also betrayed Konoha, and that scroll was something he stole before he left. If he'd gotten that to any of our enemies, we would've been in serious trouble... I know it seems really bad, but killing that guy might've saved hundreds of other lives. As bad as it sounds... He _needed_ to die..."

Naruto just looked in shock at the man, thankful that he was blocking the view of the corpse behind him. Naruto _knew_ that the guy was right, but it still just seemed so... brutal... heartless...

"I'm sorry, but it needed to be done. Now then, why are you way out here? Last I heard, people have been looking for you for almost a week now. We'd better get _you_ back, kid."

He started walking towards the path, when Naruto stopped him.

"Wait, we've gotta get Ichino."

_'Ichino...? I didn't think this kid would've had any stuffed animals or imaginary friends... then again, it's not like he has any real ones... might as well play along for a bit...'_

The two walked up to the tent, and Naruto crawled inside.

_'Odd, I thought the kid was run out of town... He shouldn't have had any money... So how the hell did he buy this stuff?'_

A small blonde head poked its way out of the tent, still sounding half groggy. The little girl peeked her head up, and upon seeing Kakashi, squeaked in fright and ducked back in.

"...Hmm...?" Kakashi muttered. He heard some whispers coming from the tent, so he focused some chakra to his ears to hear the hushed murmurs.

"_Naruto, who the heck is that?"_

"_Who, that guy?" Kakashi could almost hear the eye twitching._

"_No, the other guy standing out there...__Of__** course**__ that guy!"_

"_He's cool. He's from Konoha."_

"_...Really...?"_

Kakashi saw the girl peek out again, look at his forehead, then bring her head back in again.

"_Who is he?"_

"_He's... crap... hold on a sec..."_

Naruto looked out again this time.

"Hey, guy...? What's was your name again?"

"Hatake Kakashi," he stated in a very deadpanned tone. He was starting to get very bored, and slightly miffed, at this entire exchange.

Naruto was shoved quickly out of the tent as Ichino made her presence known again.

"Kakashi? Like, _Sharingan_ Kakashi?"

"Yeah, why?"

Ichino immediately got a cheerful expression lining her face and jumped up at him.

"I remember you! You came to our house once!"

At this, Kakashi genuinely looked slightly confused.

"I did...?"

"Yep! My mom needed an escort to Iwa, and no one in Kiri would help us, but they sent you!"

"Kiri... ? Iwa...? I'm sorry, but who was your mom again?

Ichino downsized her smile a bit, and one could see the pain in her eyes from remembering her mother, but she wouldn't let herself become sad over it right now.

"Randamu Toshimi..."

"Randamu... Rand... Oh! Yes, now I remember. But that was years ago. I don't remember seeing you... wait... mom...? You aren't... what was it... Ichino?" Kakashi was glad he remembered Naruto saying her name earlier, he would have been lost otherwise. He was never very good with names. Ironic, considering his photographic memory Sharingan, but stuff happens.

"YEP!" Ichino felt a sudden happiness that this man actually remembered her.

"Huh... You could barely walk back then. I remember you falling down the stairs trying to get to your mom when we left."

Ichino quickly turned red...

"But this still doesn't explain, Naruto, why she's here with you." It was stated as more of a question than anything.

"Well... I met her in Kiri..."

"KIRI!? How in the name of Kami-sama did you get there? Surely the villagers didn't chase you that far?" Kakashi entered an odd state of panic at the thought of how Yondaime's ghost would haunt him if he'd let _that_ happen.

"No, but I passed out and someone on a boat took me there... I just kinda woke up on the boat place, and I met Ichino in the village."

Kakashi had calmed a bit, but still felt slightly skeptical. Not that it could be seen from his single visible eye, but even still.

"Right. You expect me to believe her clan would have just let you walk out of there with her?"

At this point, Ichino felt the need to interject.

"Ano... My family was attacked. I don't know what happened to them, but I got away to Kiri."

At this point, Kakashi filled in the blanks, remembering the talk around that country and how they viewed the clan. He didn't exactly get specifics out of his mind, but at least knew that it wasn't much good. He thought it was an odd coincidence that she'd run into Naruto, but at least figured the kids would know what the other had been through.

"Got it. Well, I need to get Naruto here back to Konoha. Are you coming along?" He was reasonably certain that the girl had no where else to go at this point, and figured she wasn't just traveling with Naruto just for fun. Ichino just snapped to an adorable rendition of a salute.

"Yes, sir!"

Kakashi just chuckled, pulled out his _Icha Icha_ book, and started strolling away. Naruto and Ichino quickly put the tent away and ran to catch up. They all walked in silence until the loudest of the pack got bored and decided to speak.

"How far _is_ Konoha from here anyways...?" Naruto asked Kakashi.

"It took me about a day to run here, so probably around four days walking with you two." Kakashi blandly stated, not even looking up from his book. Naruto wondered what could possibly be so interesting about the book that Kakashi was so absorbed in it, but figured he wouldn't get a chance to find out with the jounin's nose being stuck in it so much.

"Are you gonna teach us any awesome jutsus!?" Naruto's blood pumped just at the thought.

"Are you a certified shinobi of Konohagakure no Sato?"

"...No..."

"Am I your teacher at the academy?"

"...No..."

"Then I have no authority to teach you, as I am not your assigned sensei, parent, guardian, or clan leader."

"But Mizuki-sensei never teaches me anything. He never helps me when I need help. I can't even do a **bunshin**, and he still won't help me!"

"What about your par..." Kakashi actually had the good grace to smack himself with his book. He knew he should've been paying more attention to the conversation than that. He forced himself to give more thought to the task at hand, which was a terrible shame. He was just getting to the shower scene...

"Right, never mind that. Listen, if you can't do a _bunshin_, you don't seem to be very good. No offense, but I'm not sure I can teach you anything that would be appropriate for your level."

Naruto just pouted, and walked in silence from then on.

Ichino felt as though she should say something in defense of Naruto, but she didn't want to anger the man who was not only leading them to a safe place, but was also vastly stronger than them. It just didn't seem like good common sense.

When they finally settled down for camp in the evening, Kakashi prepared himself a fire and a bit of dinner from a caught rabbit while the kids got their own food from their packs. Immediately after the meal, Naruto silently wandered away from the main camp. Kakashi could sense him, but he was getting pretty far. He was about to get up when he felt a slight pulse of chakra from Naruto's direction, along with a bit of a muffled shout.

Kakashi quickly forced chakra to his ears, only to hear Naruto yelling "_BUNSHIN!"_, groaning, and shouting it again, followed by another brief burst of chakra. This cycle continued for a bit longer, before Kakashi quit listening. At least he seemed to have had a positive effect with his earlier words, and he would be able to sense anyone attacking the small boy.

And hell, the kid sure seemed determined. Even after about an hour, at which point Kakashi would've expected any normal academy student, especially a first year, to run out of chakra, Naruto kept going. Ichino had fallen asleep, and Kakashi was keeping watch, so he decided to keep only a bit of attention on the boy whilst opening his favorite orange book.

Kakashi had only been reading for about a half hour when he noticed some fuzzy stuff out of the corner of his eye. He glanced over, and just saw some mist seeping around. He went back to his book, then snapped back. The mist was lined with chakra!

He threw his book into his pocket and rushed towards Naruto, making sure he wasn't under attack. He noticed that most of the fog was centered around Naruto, and feared the worst, when he tripped over something around waist height for him. He recovered fine, but the object in question, namely Naruto's head, wasn't quite as good.

"What the hell!? What was that for, ero-Kakashi!?"

Kakashi felt his panic subsiding as he looked around cautiously.

"Are you under attack, Naruto?" At this, Naruto just snorted in laughter.

"No. I'm just practicing my jutsu. If I'm not good enough for you, I'll just have'ta become even _better_ than you."

"What jutsu were you practicing? Surely not a _Katon_?" _One of those in the lake would account for the steam, at least…_

"No. Just _Kirigakure no jutsu_..."

Kakashi was reeling at the thought that the kid could know the jutsu, then remembered. He _had_ just come from mist... but the kid had said he couldn't even do a bunshin right... Something didn't add up here.

"Do it."

Naruto just looked up at him, one eyebrow arched in confusion.

"Do what?"

"The jutsu. _Kirigakure no jutsu_. Do it."

"Okay...?"

Naruto stretched his fingers, and slowly focused on the chakra he was focusing into the water geyser. The water slowly started evaporating, filling the area. It only spread about two feet before it fell through, leaving Naruto cursing and starting his hand seals again.

And again...

And again...

'This might not be as amazing as I thought... Kid can't really get past the basics of the dang thing' Kakashi thought, bored after the sixth try at the failed justu.

"Right, that's all well and good, but I'm gonna get going. Don't wake me up on your way back" he muttered, getting up and walking away.

"Wait, what?! Aren't you gonna help me?" Naruto had though the jounin would at least offer some advice, or even a tip or two...

"Nah, you might eventually get it with practice, but you aren't going anywhere at the moment. It wouldn't be worth it to teach you." the jounin called over his shoulder.

Empty anger was all that filled Naruto's head as he rapidly charged into the hand seals for the justu. Carefully, yet quickly, summoning up his miniature geyser, he pumped his anger and chakra into it all at once, causing it to explode outwards...

The mist filled the clearing so thickly the Naruto felt the moisture in his nose long before he realized he'd made actual mist.

Kakashi had neatly stopped dead, as the mist rushed past him, obscuring his vision for at least ten feet in front of him.

'Alright, that was slightly impressive. I've seen chuunin do better, but he isn't exactly a chuunin...'

He quickly slid to the left to avoid a ball of water, only to get another one directly in the face.

"That's for underestimating me!"

The mist quickly disippated, leaving only a passed out boy in the middle of the clearing.

'He must have used all his energy for that. Not bad, I have to say...'

Kakashi quickly picked up Naruto, slinging him over his back, and walked back to camp, thinking over the events of the last fifteen minutes.

Ichino was very obviously pretending to be asleep, as her eyes were slit just enough to see out while still thinking she couldn't be seen doing it. Kakashi could hear that her breathing wasn't very relaxed, and she was noticeably worried about Naruto's absence. Her breathing calmed a bit once Kakashi placed him in the tent, and he saw her scoot a bit closer to the boy out of the corner of his eye as he turned back to his own sleeping area.

'Huh. Cute.'

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Kakashi attempted to evaluate Naruto's progress a bit more attentively during the remainder of the return trip. So far, he hadn't noticed any quick bursts of genius like he had when first performing _Kirigakure no jutsu_ perfectly. Actually, he seemed to be doing worse, as he had gone back to failing miserably after going back to training again. Kakashi was slightly baffled, but he only observed from a distance, never actually approaching the child.

After they stopped on their third day of walking, Kakashi could see the distant smoke on the horizon that signified that Konoha was close. Probably only another four hours at their speed. Naruto had gone off training again, and Kakashi could tell that he was failing. The aura of frustration rolling off the boy was enough to tell him, even from back at the campground. He knew that there wasn't much time he'd be able to spend with the kid once they got back, and figured the least he could do was help him a bit. He thought back to what had happened last time, and the answer hit him in the face.

Feeling slightly embarrassed of himself for not thinking of the obvious a bit sooner, Kakashi slowly meandered over to the boy's training area. Naruto had been smart, going by a river, but staying in a shallow to avoid the currents messing with him. Kakashi could just see the anger on his face, and he snapped his head in annoyance in Kakashi's direction once he noticed him.

"Oi, what do you want?"

"I was simply watching. Since we're going to be back in Konoha by tomorrow, I figure I'd help you and teach you a new jutsu."

"SERIOUS?! Awesome! Thankyouthankyoutha..."

"Hold it. I'm not gonna bother teaching you something new if you're already struggling with something else. You've got three tries to correctly perform _Kirigakure no jutsu_, or I'm not teaching you anything."

The look on Naruto's face would be extremely comical if it weren't such a serious situation to him.

"WHAT?! That... But... GAH! Fine!"

Naruto quickly performed the seals, but barely produced a puff of steam. The second try was even more pathetic.

Naruto sighed, steeled himself, and pumped a mass of chakra into his third try...

He only succeeded in blowing a miniature crater in the water, which filled back in after a second.

Sighing, the boy looked sorrowfully up at Kakashi with a bit of hope, only to droop his head when the man shook his head at him. He'd failed. Kakashi wasted no time in telling him so.

"That was horrible. I would expect you to at least be able to fill a couple feet after practicing for a few days, but you've been doing nothing. I don't know why I'd bother giving you another _jutsu_, you'd most likely just fail at that one too."

Naruto's hands were trembling now, and Kakashi saw a tear hit the ground. He knew he was being unnecessarily rough, but if his hunch was right, this would help the boy more than anything... If not... well... He'd have ruined a little boy's spirits and insulted him, just like everyone else.

Kakashi only hoped that he was right.

And, almost as if responding to his thoughts, Naruto's sadness quickly turned to cold anger.

"I'll show you..." he whispered.

"What? I can barely hear you."

"I'LL SHOW YOU_! KIRIGAKURE NO JUTSU!_"

He rammed his hands together, forming the seals that he'd been doing endlessly over the past few days like lightning. Instead of a small geyser flowing up, his chakra pushed a large wave in front of him, vaporizing it instantly. The area flooded with mist, and Kakashi lifted up his headband, viewing with his guarded eye for only a second.

'Yep. He did it. That's some top quality mist right there.'

He walked up to the boy that he knew was in front of him, and felt for his shoulder, patting it twice.

"You did good. See what you can do when you focus on something?"

From what little Kakashi could see of Naruto's face through the mist, he looked amazed with himself. Kakashi knew he was right so far. The boy was so used to being ridiculed, but so determined for success, that he'd fight as hard as he could to prove his disbelievers wrong. However, Kakashi knew that wasn't going to be very helpful as a shinobi, as not all of your opponents will openly doubt and mock you. He turned his senses to the bushes where he knew Ichino was hiding after following him earlier.

'Time for step two. Come on out now...'

"Naruto...?" Her voice rang out through the woods.

'Bingo'

Naruto quickly dropped the mist, and Ichino ran over to him.

"That was amazing! You did great! Do you think you could do it again?"

Sure enough, Naruto got a proud grin on his face, and formed the seals. A cloud of mist rolled forth. It wasn't nearly as large as his anger-fueled giant earlier, but it was definitely a successful performance of the _jutsu_.

Kakashi simply slinked away in the mist, and felt Naruto performing the jutsu many times again for the next few hours, with Ichino joining in once or twice. Both came back to the camp and passed out cleanly in their tent, not even bothering to take off their shoes.

'The kid does fine once he's got something to go for. He's got determination up so many places, I don't care to even think about it. That'll only help him so much, though. He needs people to believe in him, and Ichino seems to do that well enough. I can't blame him, with how he gets treated... Maybe I should see the Hokage about helping him every now and then. He certainly doesn't have a family to teach him, and sensei would probably haunt me if I let the kid rot.'

With that, he pulled out his familiar orange book and proceeded to read.

Kakashi's giggling would be heard late into the night.

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Naruto woke up feeling as though his nose was taped against his face. Sure enough, he had something tied around his head, blocking his view and strangling his poor nose.

Untangling himself, Naruto saw a scroll. Unrolling it, he gathered that it was a note.

'_Naruto and Ichino,_

_I'm sorry to have left you guys, but I was supposed to have been back_

_yesterday, and my regular lateness won't cover another day. I'm sure_

_you can make it back fine, and Konoha's only another couple of hours_

_away. Naruto, I know I said I wouldn't, but I've decided to bestow_

_upon you the gift of a jutsu. It's a pretty basic restraining technique,_

_that ties your victim up in very strong ropes. It was originally made_

_as an interrogation technique, but I'm sure you can figure out some_

_use for it. The seals are bird, sheep, dragon, tiger, sheep. It might take_

_you a bit, as it's making stuff out of thin air, as opposed to manipulating_

_stuff like water, but it's not too hard. Ichino can learn it too, but I_

_imagine she'll be fast enough in battle that she shouldn't need to hold_

_down her enemies. Good luck guys. I may see you sooner than you'd think,_

_Kakashi_ '

Underneath was a quick drawing of Kakashi giving a peace sign.

Naruto was slightly confused, but blinked the sleepiness out of his eyes and read it again. He didn't understand half of the words, but got the basic gist. Kakashi left, gave him a new jutsu, Ichino could learn it, he'll see us soon, yadda yadda yad... NEW JUTSU!!!!

"SWEET!!!!" yelled an ecstatic Naruto, only to be smacked by Ichino, who promptly huffed and rolled back over to sleep. Naruto quietly got up, and wandered off into the woods a little ways from his tent. He formed the seals, and got a small thread of yarn. Again and again, Naruto toiled, knowing that he had to get this jutsu working before getting back to Konoha to prove how great he was to Kakashi. It'd also be pretty cool to show Ichino how he'd learned two jutsus overnight.

Surely enough, he eventually ended up with some pretty good rope. It wasn't extremely strong, and wouldn't hold any experienced shinobi, but it was definitely progress. He heard a slight sound to his right, and decided to make use of his new gift.

"_Soutei no jutsu!_ " he called out, aiming into the bushes. He heard a thump a second later, and went over to inspect.

An angered Ichino was his only prize. Well, that and a scolding so long and mean that Naruto's had goosebumps for the next hour.

After untying her and receiving a bash on his head, Naruto apologized and turned back to camp. He finished packing up the tent by the time Ichino came back, and seemed to have satiated her anger enough to be civil.

"When did you learn that _jutsu_?"

Naruto just kept packing, but replied enthusiastically over his shoulder.

"Kakashi left it on a note for me. I can teach you if you want, but it'll have to wait until we get back. I'd like to be able to sleep in my own bed tonight."

Ichino fumed for a second, but quickly gave up and helped finish packing. The two finished and started back on their trek home.

"Naruto?"

"Yeah...?"

"What's your house like?"

Naruto paused for a moment. His house was a shambles. It wasn't anything he took any pride in, as it was shoved on him once he knew how to walk and talk. He definitely didn't keep it clean, but random villagers kept busting in and messing it up even worse... What if they'd done that again? He'd already had one apartment that would have been burned down, if it weren't for the ANBU.

"Uhmm... It's nothing special. Kinda small, but I like it."

Ichino could tell that he looked slightly troubled, but just smiled at him.

"It sounds nice. I can't wait to see it."

The two engaged in more idle conversation, mostly about Naruto's home and Konoha, but about many other subjects as well. The time passed, and eventually they found themselves at the Konoha gates.

"Yo! I'm back, so open up!"

The guard just looked boredly at the boy. He knew who the kid was, _exactly_ who he was. Thankfully, the guard was of the more 'live and let live' variety of people, and as he'd never seen the kid do anything harmful, he figured he'd just let him be for now.

"Identification?"

Naruto faltered.

"Um... I don't have any..."

"Why not?"

"You kinda need parents for that..." Naruto mumbled under his breath.

'Right, orphan. How do I handle that? Probably the same as any other guy who doesn't have identification.'

"Alright kid, I'm gonna have to escort you to the Hokage. He'll give you clearance from there."

Naruto just followed him, but Ichino strayed behind a bit. She knew, from personal experience, how bad not having parents was, but to never have had any? The fact that he didn't even have an ID card, or any proof of who he was, seemed very strange. Ichino realized with a jolt that while she'd lost her parents, Naruto had never **had **any. She knew this, but the true implications had just reached her.

'He's never had _anyone_ to care for him. Not even a guardian...'

This brought Ichino some sadness, but also gave her more faith in the boy. If he'd turned out as well as he was now, he obviously was strong enough to overcome it.

It was a slightly sullen, yet proud Ichino that followed behind Naruto. Thankfully, her mood didn't keep her from enjoying Konoha's wonder, and Naruto wasted no time in pointing out various important landmarks, such as the Hokage's Tower in the distance, the mountainside where all the Hokage's faces were carved, and most importantly... Ichiraku's Ramen and Noodle Bar.

"We'll stop by there for dinner. Ojii-san would love to meet you."

Ichino just followed pleasantly, taking in the new sights. Her observations got her noticing the looks that Naruto was getting from the people around. She didn't like them one bit.

"Why do they look at you like that?"

Naruto just looked at her, surprised that she'd noticed, but hesitant to talk about it.

"I don't know. It's probably why they call me a monster, too, but I don't know why it is."

Ichino's eyes soon averted from the villagers, but were brought back up upon Naruto stopping in front of her.

"We're here" The chuunin guard spoke up.

Letting them inside, the two walked up to the receptionist's counter. Noting that there was no one around, Naruto asked to be let in and "chat with Ojii-san".

It was a brief chuckle from behind that greeted his statement. Turning around, Naruto quickly tackle-hugged the village's leader.

"Naruto, you gave me quite a scare when you ran off. What happened?"

Following the Hokage into his office, Naruto took a chair and started explaining.

"The villagers chased me off, and I crashed on a boat that took me to _Kiri_. I got back, but we got lost and made it to _Suna_. We met the Kazekage and his kids, and then we met Kakashi, and he taught me a jutsu, and then we came back here."

The Sandaime just blinked. He then looked over at Ichino.

"And who might this be?"

"Oh, she's Ichino-chan. I met her in _Kiri_, and I want her to stay with me."

The Hokage's eyes sharpened.

"You _took_ her from _Kiri_?"

"No, she wanted to come with me"

"Is this true, Ichino-san?"

"Y-yes sir. I... I wasn't very welcome in _Kiri_."

"What about your guardians?"

"They... They died, sir..."

The Hokage could see the bad memories being brought back to the girl, and could tell that she wasn't lying. He normally would have checked more, but she was only six, and couldn't lie well enough to fool a Kage.

"Very well. Naruto, you have permission to house her until she decides to leave, at which point she will be provided a home of her own. I'll tell Iruka that you're back as well, and Mizuki should fill you in on what you missed with him. Ichino, you will have to fill out some forms for me, but granting you temporary citizenship until further notice shouldn't be too hard. I welcome you to Konohagakure."

"Thank you, sir."

"Also, Naruto, your monthly allowance I owed to you as well. Here's your money. Use it wisely."

"Thanks Ojii-san!" Said the ecstatic boy, grabbing his envelope from the desk.

"Goodbye then. Ichino, I'll have the papers dropped off at Naruto's in a few days. Behave yourself until then."

The two filed out, and Naruto wove through the streets, leading Ichino on the familiar path back to his home. Of course, there was the necessary detour to Ichiraku's for dinner, but _then_ they continued on. In only a an hour's time from leaving the Hokage's office, they arrived at his complex.

"Well, here we are. Lemme grab the lock real quick..."

Naruto unlocked the door, and made a big show of having to haul his bag in first. In truth, he was checking whether or not his house had been ruined again. Thankfully, he saw very little out of place, and it was stuff he never kept in place to begin with. He heaved a thankful sigh to whatever god was listening, and turned around to help Ichino. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a speedy blur, and looked to see an ANBU leaping over the rooftops towards the Hokage Tower. He thought little of it.

'Happens all the time.'

He proceeded to invite Ichino in and give her the grand tour.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

"Hokage-sama."

"Yes, Hayate? I trust Naruto has returned home?"

"Yes,sir. His home has been untouched by any meaning to desecrate it."

"Good, we wouldn't want another repeat of that attempted burning... How many offenders had to be chased off in total?"

"Twenty seven, sir. There was one large group of fourteen, but most came individually."

The Hokage gently massaged the bridge of his nose.

"Kami... Twenty seven? I knew some people would try it, after all the times in the past, but I never expected this many... Very well. Hayate, you are free to go. Thank you for watching over his home for him."

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

And with that, the ANBU left the room. The Sandaime slowly turned around in his seat.

"Now then, Kakashi. How many times have I told you not to sneak in here?"

"Only thirty eight, sir." The man stated factually, moving from his leaning spot on the wall to sit in a chair, but putting his precious book away first.

"Well, that's thirty **nine** too many. Now then, thank you for coming back on such short notice. You said you had more information from your mission?"

"Yes, sir. I met a young boy while I was on my hunting mission. I think you might know him. Uzumaki Naruto... scrawny kid, blonde hair, blue eyes, orphan, has the Kyuubi sealed inside him... Ring any bells?"

The Hokage simply gave him a look of annoyance.

"Right, well, I found him out in the outlying woods of Fire Country. Traveling with a girl named Ichino. Anyways, I walked back most of the way with them. Helped them with a _jutsu_, and taught him a new one."

"What did you help him with, and what did you teach him?"

"Helped with _Kirigakure no jutsu_..." Ignoring the slightly shocked look on the Hokage's face, he continued. "And I taught him the basic interrogation restraining _jutsu_."

"Hmm... Kakashi, you aren't the boys sensei. You have refused many teams now, every single one I've given you. Why do you now try teaching Naruto?"

Kakashi considered a moment, then answered.

"First, I figure the least I can do in sensei's memory is teach the kid a _jutsu_ or two. Second, he doesn't have anyone, and I really figure it can't hurt."

The Sandaime only sighed.

"Fine. I suppose I can't fault you that much. Thank you for at least watching over him until he got into the village, at the least."

Kakashi decided to press his luck.

"Actually, sir... I was wondering about possibly tutoring the kid. I've heard Iruka mention that his grades aren't exactly up to par. I figure, if I'm not on missions, that I could meet with him once a week and teach him."

Kakashi wondered why he felt like a little kid bargaining with his parents, but this **was** the Hokage... He could kick even Kakashi's ass in about 5 seconds.

Said ass-kicking machine was currently deliberating.

"Fine. I suppose it could be doable. I'll have to talk to Iruka to make sure that he's alright with it, but I don't foresee any problems." Kakashi merely smiled in victory, not that it was visible. "That brings up my last point though... I asked you to be here two hours ago. Why weren't you here then?"

Kakashi merely took a moment to conjure an excuse out of his ass, and replied.

"I had to help escort some caravans to _Suna_."

"That's a two day run, **one way**, not there-and-back in two hours..."

"Well, I'm just an awesome ninja like that."

And with that, Kakashi simply winked and disappeared in a poof of smoke.

ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

"And that's the bathroom. Any questions?"

Ichino had just been given the tour of Naruto's apartment, which had somehow stretched to over a half hour in length. She was amazed that that much length could be given to a tour of what was essentially a single room and a bathroom, but figured it was more to Naruto's likelihood to go off on a random tangent than focus on the tour.

"Um, what do we have for food?"

"Ramen!" Naruto replied with enthusiasm great enough to make Ichino swear that she felt the floor quake.

"That's all?"

Naruto got a slightly frustrated look on his face.

"Well, we can get some more stuff, though it's usually a bit hard to come by for me. I don't think many of the shop owners like me, though it's probably because I don't have any parents to make sure I don't get into trouble."

The two talked for a bit longer and discussed Ichino's new living conditions, and it was dark out before they knew it.

"Wow, It's already 9:30..."

"Alright, time to head to bed then. I'll need to introduce you to Iruka sensei if you wanna join the academy."

The two prepped for bed, and Naruto was about to clamber onto his bed when he noticed a problem. He glanced over towards the bathroom door where Ichino was just exiting.

"Ichino, where were you planning on sleeping?"

Ichino thought for a moment, then replied.

"I just figured I'd use the couch, if that's alright..."

Naruto nodded, stood up, and pulled Ichino over towards his bed.

"I'm not gonna let a guest sleep on my couch. You can use the bed, and I'll use the couch."

Naruto turned the lights off while Ichino got into his bed. He couldn't see in the dark, or he would have noticed the profuse blush on Ichino's face.

He also couldn't feel while he was asleep, or he would have felt Ichino get up out of his bed and curl up next to him on the couch.

'Besides, he's more comfy than that pillow.'

---Bbbbllllllllaaaaaaahhhhhhh(I really need to find out how to format line breaks)ahhahahd

The next day rose bright, shining, and way too damn annoying for Ichino as she tried to sleep through it. Thankfully, the wonderful smell of food brought her out of it.

Prying her eyes open, she glanced over towards the kitchen corner of Naruto's (and her's, she remembered) home. She saw a simmering pot, filled with water, sitting unattended on the stove. Turning around upon hearing a flushing noise behind her, she saw a shirtless Naruto waltzing out of the bathroom. Upon noticing her attention upon him, he quickly blushed and slid back into his previous exit point, until he heard a loud _hissing_ noise and rushed back out in a hurry, shirt halfway on his shoulders, covering one of his eyes.

He grabbed the pot and attempted to drain it, but his un-coordinated clothing and his hurry caused him to spill a good amount of boiling water on his stomach.

"OW!" he yelped, slamming the pot down and cringing on the floor. Ichino promptly rushed over, all sleepiness gone from her eyes, and tried to take a look at the damage. She saw a large amount of reddened, and almost definitely burned, skin, and what appeared to be a giant seal on his stomach. She stared in shock as it pulsed slowly, while the burns disappeared almost before her eyes. The seal slowly faded, and Ichino simply gaped at Naruto as he got back up, finally completing the act of putting on his shirt.

"Wh….What was _that_?" she inquired, eyes still trained on his stomach, as if using x-ray eyes to stare through his shirt at where the seal was.

"What was what?" Naruto innocently, and cluelessly, replied.

"There was a… a seal. On your stomach. It healed you."

Naruto just nervously chuckled, and pulled his shirt up a bit, forming his hands into the ram seal. The seal on his stomach slowly faded back into view, though it was noticeably dimmer than before.

"I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it shows up whenever I mold chakra. Why did you say it healed me…?"

Ichino started piecing things together in her mind, even if they weren't entirely accurate.

"Whenever you mold chakra….? Naruto, maybe you have a healing bloodline limit!"

Naruto bit his lip thoughfully, lowering his shirt back down.

"Yeah, I thought about that before. If I do, though, it's no family I've ever heard of. No one else ever knows the Uzumaki name either."

"Maybe your name was changed…?" Ichino probed, her own curiosity sending her mind into overload. So much so that she nearly missed Naruto's horribly tragic look after her statement.

"Maybe… But it's the only name I've got… Dammit, I don't care if my last name's real, or if it's actually Bob, I'm Uzumaki Naruto! Nothing gonna stop me from making that name famous, real or not!" The determination in his eyes was exciting enough to be infectious, and soon Ichino found herself standing right next to the boy.

"As if! I'm gonna sweep the Hokage title straight out from under you when you least expect it!"

Naruto gaped at the girl.

"You're really gonna fight me for the title?" He perused, his eyebrow cocked in disbelief. Ichino let her energy subside for a second before answering back.

"No, I wouldn't do that. But it wouldn't hurt you to have some competition. It would only make you push to be even stronger."

Naruto though about this, and saw the truth in it, though he wouldn't openly admit that to Ichino.

"Meh, maybe. Of course, that doesn't really work, since there's no one good enough to give ME any put up a fight!"

Ichino simply giggled at how much Naruto's speech lost momentum from his lack of vocabulary. Naruto merely sighed, and smiled back.

"Anyways, It's nearly 8:00. I was making food for us, then I've gotta get to class, but we'll get there early so I can have you meet Iruka-sensei and get you in the Academy. You still want to join, right?" At Ichino's nod, he continued. "Okay, then we'll have ramen, and get going, alright?"

The two ate in relative peace, though Ichino was rather impressed at Naruto's deftness at cooking packaged ramen. It wasn't as good as what she had at Ichiraku's the night before, but was still rather good.

Afterwards, they both did the dishes, and got ready for the Academy. Naruto made a big show of putting his 'awesome, perfect new kunai' in his leg pouch, but told Ichino that she wouldn't need any yet. Since she would be in an earlier class, as she was younger, she wouldn't be studying target practice yet.

The two exited the apartment, and made their way along Konoha's morning streets. Naruto liked this time of day, as the sun was out, yet it wasn't particularly hot. Also, many shops either weren't open yet, or were just unlocking their doors, so there were fewer people to give him the evil eye.

The academy was only a ten minute walk from Naruto's apartment, so the walk was leisurely, but not overly long. Upon reaching the building, Narutoopened the front door, waving his arm in a broad gesture, as if funneling Ichino into the building.

"Welcome the the Ninja Academy! I like to call it 'the place where you learn cool stuff, but the rest of it's hell!'" He loudly announced with his large grin.

"Naruto! I thought I wouldn't have to deal with you for another hour! And what's this about my school being hell?"

Naruto didn't even turn around to recognize the voice, though he did wince quite a bit after his proclamation was heard.

"Uh…. Hi, Iruka-sensei!" He turned around, snapping to a mocking salute.

"Naruto, you're going to give me grey hair, I know it. Who's your friend?"

Ichino shyly bowed her head and introduced herself.

"Yeah, Iruka-sensei. We're here early to get Ichino-chan in the academy!" Naruto announced after her introduction.

Iruka glanced at his watch, before looking back at the two kids.

"Fine, I suppose it would be best to do that now. Come with me to my office, and we'll sign you up."

The walked through the hallway to the single room at the end, and entered, shutting the door.

"Right then. Normally, Ichino, I'd need your parent or guardian here to approve your choice of career interests, but I've received a note from the Hokage informing me of your… parental status." He lowered his clipboard, eyes weary.

"I'm going to share this with you, Ichino. Naruto, I don't think you know this either, but I was an orphan as a kid to. I lost both of my parents to the Kyuubi attack years ago. It's not easy, though I'm sure both of you, Naruto especially, know this. If you guys ever need any help with stuff, I'd like you to know that I'm available to help.

That said, are you **absolutely** sure that this is the life you want to get into? Normally kids have parents to sit them through this, but you obviously don't. I won't lie to you, a ninja isn't a pretty life. You'll be forced to kill people, and very likely nearly die yourself multiple times. It's hard, and you have to be willing to work to be strong to protect yourself and those you care about. Just going to class here isn't enough. You'll have to put in plenty of time at home practicing to be competent."

Naruto just flashed a grin at the increasingly nervous Ichino.

"Maa, don't worry Iruka-sensei! I'll make sure Ichino-chan practices plenty!"

Iruka gave him a slightly exasperated eyebrow raise.

"Naruto, I appreciate the gesture, but you won't always be with Ichino to make sure she practices, especially not when she's at home." He was interrupted from continuing by Ichino speaking up.

"Actually, Iruka-sensei, I am living with Naruto-kun (Naruto blinked at his new suffix), as he has been nice enough to let me stay with him. I know that you're worried, but I'm sure about this. I want to be a ninja."

Iruka looked shocked at the fact that Ichino was living with Naruto. A boy and a girl, living alone together, was sure to draw some questions. Then again, they were very young, but it would get worse as they got older.

'I don't want to be there when puberty hits. THAT will be awkward."

Straightening his face, he continued.

"Alright, if you're sure, you'll have classes with Midako-sensei. Your head sensei for your first three years will be Mizuki-sensei, but your individual class' teacher will switch every year. They'll only be there to handle times when Mizuki isn't with other classes, and you'll have him on Monday and Tuesday. Naruto here has Mizuki Wednesday and Friday. He'll teach the main skills and lessons, while the other teachers will drill you, have you practice what you've learned, and teach things like history and math."

Ichino nodded, showing she understood.

"Alright then, class is about to start, so I'll show you to your room. You're lucky you got here on a Monday, since you won't miss any of Mizuki's lessons for this week."

Opening the door, he ushered her in, and walked over o tell Mizuki about his new arrival. Ichino quickly glanced back out the door, and Naruto walked over and gave her a quick hug.

"You'll be fine. I promise it won't be that bad!"

She shoved a smile on her face before walking over to Mizuki-sensei.

"It's nice to meet you, Ichino-san. I hope you'll be as excited to learn as I am to teach." He said with a pleasant smile on his face.

Ichino nodded, and Mizuki continued.

"I hope you don't mind if I introduce you to the rest of the class?"

"No, that would be fine."

"Alright then. Everyone, calm down! We've got a new student joining us, Her name in Randamu Ichino, and I trust you'll all treat her nicely. Ichino, feel free to sit in whichever seat is empty."

Sure enough, as soon as Ichino looked up, she saw the eyes of the rest of the class bearing down on her, judging her. She walked up the row and sat next to a girl with pink hair.

'I'll probably be more comfortable next to another girl' she figured.

"Hi, my name's Ichino, It's nice to meet you."

The girl looked over and smiled.

"I'm Haruno Sakura. The girl next to me is Yamanaka Ino." She said, pointing out the other girl after she waved at Ichino around Sakura.

"Hi Sakura, Ino. Do you know many others in this class?"

Ino just rolled her eyes jokingly.

"Of _course_! I'll point everyone out to you during lunch. Mizuki sensei's about to start."

"Alright everyone, pay attention! I'm about to teach you about one of the most important fundamentals of **any** ninja technique. It's called _chakra_, and I'll be teaching you about it and how to use it.

Ichino just rolled her eyes at the lesson that she already knew, but paid attention anyways. It couldn't hurt to have a refresher. As she looked at Mizuki-sensei's notes that he was writing on the board during his lecture, her thoughts began to wander a bit.

'I wonder what Naruto's doing in _his_ class right now…'

---nnbyhbklvcjbsjhbjasfd(still need line dividers)

Naruto staggered after receiving a punch to the face. He managed to lock his back knee in, and quickly recovered, lunging for his opponent. The other boy simply spun out of the way, smacking Naruto on the back of the head. In frustration, he formed a few hand seals, using his body to cover them from the other boy's vew.

"_Soutei no jutsu_!" he shouted, flinging ropes around his combatant.

The boy struggled, trying to pry his way out of the ropes. Naruto simply walked over, grabbing the boy's shirt and heaving him out of the circle they were fighting in.

"Stop! Naruto, you win. Nice use of jutsu, although the point of this was to be a _**tai**__jutsu_ exercise. Please refrain from using _ninjutsu_ until we move to full sparring, okay?"

Naruto chuckled, scratching the back of his head.

"Heh, sorry Kumina-sensei! I'll make sure not to do that again."

He turned around ad dispelled the ropes around his opponent, helping him up.

"Sorry about that Koji. I suppose that wasn't a real win then, huh?"

Koji just laughed along with him.

"Nah, it's all fair game. You wouldn't hold back in a real fight, no reason to here!"

"Yeah… Still, you'd have won if I hadn't pulled that _jutsu_ out!"

"Maybe. That reminds me, where'd you learn that jutsu anyways? We sure haven't been taught that one here!"

Naruto thought back, and decided to go with a bit of a half-truth.

"Maa, I found it in this scroll that smacked me in the face one day."

"Serious?!"

"Yeah, it was pretty funny. I'm gonna grab some water though. Well have to fight again some time!"

Naruto walked over to the water fountain by the sparring circle, and crank to his heart's content while thinking about one thing.

'I wonder how Ichino's first day is going?

---nbhjbsahb ljhvbaeendofchapter

Right, so, this definitely took forever to come out. I honestly can't apologize enough, if anyone actually cared long enough to notice.

I kinda realized that I was writing the first chapters stupidly, and wasn't focusing on good writing as much. I'm not rewriting them, as I do like how they turned out, but I'm going to take the actual writing a bit more seriously now, rather than just the story.

One of the first things to go, in that aspect, was the song-named chapter titles. I realized how stupid of an idea that was after chapter 3, but I'm just gonna oust it. Don't get me wrong, I'm still naming the chapters after the songs, as I've got the chapter names already worked out. However, I'm not going to name off the song and artist, along with a personal opinion. Seriously, this site is for fanfics, not music opinions!

Also, I stopped doing anything on this for a while after some friends mocked me ceaselessly about the first chapters. Kinda made me a bit self-conscious, but screw them. I'm back, and I'm gonna keep writing!

Assuming you want me to, of course. Reviews help with that kinda thing :P.


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